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Number 51 







RIVERSIDE LITERATURE SERIES 

Complete Catalogue and Price List free upon application 



1. Longfellow's Evangeline. 

2. Longfellow's Courtship of Miles Standish. 

3. Dramatization of Miles Standish. 

4. Whittier's Snow-Bound, etc. 

5. Whittier's Mabel Martin. 

6. Holmes's Grandmother's Story. 

7. 8, 9. Hawthorne's Grandfather's Chair. 

10. Hawthorne's Biographical Series. 

11. Longfellow's Children's Hour, etc. 
13, 14. Longfellow's Song of Hiawatha. 

16. Bayard Taylor's Lars. 

17, 18. Hawthorne's Wonder-Book. 
19, 20. Franklin's Autobiography. 

21. Franklin's Poor Richard's Almanac, and 

Other Papers. 

22, 23. Hawthorne's Tangle wood Tales. 

24. Washington's Farewell Addresses, etc. 

25, 26. Longfellow's Golden Legend. 

27. Thoreau's Forest Trees, etc. 

28. Burroughs's Birds and Bees. 

.29. Hawthorne's Little Daffydowndilly, etc. 

30. Lowell's Vision of Sir Lauufal, etc. 

31. Holmes's My Hunt after the Captain, etc. 

32. Lincoln's Gettysburg Speech, etc. 
33-35. Longfellow's Tales of a Wayside Lin. 

36. Burroughs's Sharp Eyes, etc. 

37. Warner's A-Hunting of the Deer, etc. 

38. Longfellow's Building of the Ship, etc. 

39. Lowell's Books and Libraries, etc. 

40. Hawthorne's Tales of the White Hills. 

41. Whittier's Tent on the Beach, etc. 

42. Emerson's Fortune of the Republic, etc. 

43. Bryant's Ulysses among the Phaeacians. 

44. Edgeworth's Waste not. Want not, etc. 

45. Macaulay's Lays of Ancient Rome. 

46. Old Testament Stories. 

47. 48. Scudder's Fables and Folk Stories. 
49, 50. Andersen's Stories. 

51. Irving's Rip Van Winkle, etc. 

52. Irving's The Voyage, etc. 

53. Scott's Lady of the Lake. 

54. Bryant's Thauatopsis, etc. 

55. Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. 

56. Webster's First Bunker Hill Oration. 

57. Dickens's Christmas Carol. 

58. Dickens's Cricket on the Hearth. 

59. Verse and Prose for Beginners in Reading. 

60. 61. The Sir Roger de Coverley Papers. 

62. Fiske's War of Independence. 

63. Longfellow's Paul Revere 's Ride, etc. 
64-66. Lambs' Tales from Shakespeare. 

67. Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. 

68. Goldsmith's Deserted Village, etc. 

69. Hawthorne's The Old Manse, etc. 

70. 71. Selection from Whittier's Child Life. 

72. Milton's Minor Poems. 

73. Tennyson's Enoch Arden, etc. 

74. Gray's Elegy ; Cowper's John Gilpin. 

75. Scudder's George Washington. 

76. Wordsworth's Intimations of Immortality. 

77. Bnms's Cotter's Saturday Night, etc. 

78. Goldsmith's Vicar of Wakefield. 

79. Lamb's Old China, etc. 



80. Coleridge's Ancient Mariner ; Campbell's 

Lochiel's Warning, etc. 

81. Holmes's Autocrat of the Breakfast-Table. 

82. Hawthorne's Twice-Told Tales. 

83. Eliot's Silas Marner. 

84. Dana's Two Years Before the Mast. 

85. Hughes's Tom Brown's School Days. 

86. Scott's Ivanhoe. 

87. Defoe's Robinson Crusoe. 

88. Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. 

89. 90. Swift's Gulliver's Voyages. 

91. Hawthorne's House of the Seven Gables. 

92. Burroughs's A Bunch of Herbs, etc. 

93. Shakespeare's As You Like It. 

94. Milton's Paradise Lost. Books I-III. 
95-98. Cooper's Last of the Mohicans. 
99. Tennyson's Coming of Arthur, etc. 

100. Burke's Conciliation with the Colonies. 

101. Pope's Iliad. Books I, VI, XXII, XXIV. 

102. Macaulay's Johnson and Goldsmith. 

103. Macaulay's Milton. 

104. Macaulay's Addison. 

105. Carlyle's Essay on Burns. 

106. Shakespeare's Macbeth. 

107. 108. Grimms' Tales. 

109. Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress. 

110. De Quincey's Flight of a Tartar Tribe, 
HI. Tennyson's Princess. 

112. Cranch's ^neid. Books I-III. 

1 13. Poems from Emerson. 

114. Peabody's Old Greek Folk Stories. 

115. Browning's Pied Piper of Hamelin, etc. 

116. Shakespeare's Hamlet. 

117. 118. Stories from the Arabian Nights. 
119, 120. Poe's Poems and Tales. 

121. Speech by Hayne on Foote's Resolution. 

122. Speech by Webster in Reply to Hayne. 

123. Lowell's Democracy, etc. 

124. Aldrich's The Cruise of the Dolphin. 

125. Dryden's Palamon and Arcite. 

126. Ruskin's King of the Golden River, etc. 

127. Keats's Ode on a Grecian Urn, etc. 

128. Byron's Prisoner of Chillon, etc. 

129. Plato's Judgment of Socrates. 

130. Emerson's The Superlative, etc. 

131. Emerson's Nature, etc. 

132. Arnold's Sohrab and Rustum, etc. 

133. Schurz's Abraham Lincoln. 

134. Scott's Lay of the Last Minstrel. 

135. Chaucer's Prologue. 

136. Chaucer's The Knight's Tale, etc. 

137. Bryant's Iliad. Bks. I, VI, XXII, XXIV. 

138. Hawthorne's The Custom House, etc. 

139. Howells's Doorstep Acquaintance, and 

Other Sketches. 

140. Thackeray's Henry Esmond. 
142. Ruskin's Sesame and Lilies. 

144. Scudder's The Book of Legends. 

145. Hawthorne's The Gentle Boy, and Other 

Tales. 

146. Longfellow's Giles Corey. 

147. Pope's Rape of the Lock, etc. 

148. Hawthorne's Marble Faun. 



{See also back covers) 



(74) 



tEljc Hil)rr0iDc ilitcraturr &ttit& 



MP VAN WINKLE 

AND OTHER AMERICAN ESSAYS FROM 
THE SKETCH BOOK 

BY 

WASHINGTON IRVING 



WITH INTRODUCTION, EXPLANATORY NOTES AND 
QUESTIONS AND TOPICS FOR STUDY 

New Edition 




BOSTON NEW YORK CHICAGO SAN FRANCISCO 

HOUGHTON MIBTLIN COMPANY 



CONTENTS ^ rj>^ 

Chronological Table N , . . in 

Biographical Sketch of Irving vii 

Map of the Regions Mentioned xviii 

Rip Van Winkle 7 

Legend of Sleepy Hollow 32 

Philip of Pokanoket 76 

Explanatory Notes, with Questions and Topics for 

Study i 



The selections from "The Sketch Book" included in 
this number of the Riverside Literature Series are used by 
permission of, and by arrangement with, Messrs. G. P. Put- 
nam's Sons, the authorized publishers of Irving's works. 



COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 
COPYRIGHT, 1 891, BY HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO. 

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED 

CAMBRIDGE . MASSACHUSETTS 
PRINTED IN THE U.S.A. 



NOV 13 "22 



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WASHINGTON IRVING. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

Washington Irving — "the first ambassador whom the 
New World of Letters sent to the Old" — was born in New 
York on April 3, 1783. His mother named him after George 
Washington, and a pleasant anecdote connects his childhood 
with the great man whose biographer he was to be in later 
years. One morning, as his Scotch nurse had him out for a 
walk, she saw the President enter a shop. The nurse hastened 
in with her charge, and said: " Please, your honor, here 's a 
bairn was named for you." Washington turned and, laying 
his hand on the child's head, gave him his blessing. 

Born of well-to-do parents, Irving was the youngest of a 
large family; his formative years were passed under the in- 
fluence of a cultured home, and with plenty of congenial 
companionship. The surroundings of his childish days thus 
were fortunate, and no doubt tended to mould his mind and 
character for an appreciation of the finer things of life. His 
boyhood was in no sense remarkable ; he was fond of reading, 
Robinson Crusoe and The Arabian Nights being among 
his favorite books, while a youthful inclination towards 
travel and adventure seems to have been stimulated by a 
History of the Civil Wars of Granada, and stirred still further 
by a set of voyages called The World Displayed. He at- 
tended school until the age of sixteen, when for some reason 
he declined to complete his education in the normal way by 
following his two brothers William and Peter to Columbia 
College; instead, he entered a lawyer's office. 



viii WASHINGTON IRVING. 

But the study of the law did not very closely engage his 
attention; his tastes lay outside the walls of the office. 
"How wistfully," he wrote afterwards of this period of his 
life, "would I wander about the pier-heads in fine weather, 
and watch the parting ships, bound to distant climes; with 
what longing eyes would I gaze after their lessening sails, and 
waft myself in imagination to the ends of the earth." These 
restless cravings were partially satisfied by two journeys — 
one up the Hudson to Albany; the other north as far as 
Montreal and Quebec. They were venturous expeditions; 
discomfort and difficulty were all in the day's work, while 
dangers came unsought. But Irving from the first inured 
himself to the hardships inseparable from travel at a time 
when the voyager was lucky to reach Albany in half a week, 
and when the journey from New York to Boston occupied 
six days. He was by nature, and became still more by train- 
ing, an excellent traveller. "For my own part," he said, 
"I endeavor to take things as they come, with cheerfulness; 
when I cannot get a dinner to suit my taste, I endeavor to 
get a taste to suit my dinner." 

Not only did he begin at this time to gratify his desire for 
travel, but he entered also — tentatively and insecurely — 
into the field of literature. He wrote a few essays, signed 
"Jonathan Oldstyle," and published them in a journal 
owned by his brother Peter. They mildly satirized New 
York life after the manner of the eighteenth-century essay- 
ists in England and show neither more nor less merit than 
might be expected of a young man of nineteen. Their chief 
value lies in the fact that they indicate a practical interest 
in writing. 

During his youth, Irving's health had never been very 
good. With the hope that change might help him, his 
brothers sent him to Europe, where he spent the years from 
1804 to 1806. The experience was a delightful one, despite 
the delays and difficulties which fell to the lot of the way- 
farer by sailing-ship and stage-coach. He visited Sicily and 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. ix 

Italy; he wandered leisurely through France, Holland, and 
England. "The young American traveller" was most cor- 
dially received; he possessed a geniality of temper which 
everywhere won him friends. At the same time, his saga- 
cious powers of observation and his keen sense of humor 
enabled him to grasp and store up impressions which later 
were to form the inspiration for much of his writing. He 
came home again completely restored to health. 

The legal studies of his earlier years had been so far suc- 
cessful that soon after his return he was admitted to the bar 
and taken into partnership with his brother John. It cannot 
be said, however, that he seriously practised his profession. 
A little law and a great deal of literature, together with the 
enjoyment of the society of his native city, carried him 
comfortably through four years, at the end of which he 
joined his brothers Ebenezer and Peter in the large hard- 
ware importing business which they had built up. There was 
an understanding that he should be connected with the firm 
as a "silent" partner, and, while sharing in the profits, 
should be called upon to do merely a nominal portion of the 
work. Thus he would have plenty of opportunity to follow 
his literary tastes, with which his brothers were thoroughly 
in sympathy. Under this kindly arrangement, he became 
well-known as a man about town — a man of literary prom- 
ise and one who had seen the world. 

As a result came the publication of Salmagundi, a maga- 
zine in which he was associated with James Kirke Paulding 
and William Irving. It lived for about a year. "Our inten- 
tion," ran the editorial announcement, "is simply to instruct 
the young, reform the old, correct the town, and castigate 
the age." The matter was humorous and original enough, 
and made a stir in New York; the manner was pleasantly 
reminiscent of Addison's Spectator papers. 

His next venture was the book which established his repu- 
tation — A History of New York, by Diedrich Knickerbocker. 
Intended at first as a parody upon a pompous narrative 



X WASHINGTON IRVING. 

called A Picture of New York, the History soon outgrew the 
limits of a mere imitation and developed into a comic history 
of the city under Dutch rule. The book was heralded by 
humorous advertisements in the newspapers, which an- 
nounced the disappearance of "a small elderly gentleman, 
dressed in an old black coat and cocked hat, called Knicker- 
bocker." He was last seen on the Albany stage, and had left 
at his lodgings nothing but a "very curious kind of written 
book," which was to be published to pay his board bill. 
Introduced in this original way, the History appeared in 
1809 and created a sensation. It dealt with characters, 
places, and situations which were familiar to every New 
Yorker of the day, it was conceived in a serio-comic vein of 
amusing irony that piqued the curiosity, and it was written 
in a style already marked by the distinction afterwards so 
characteristic of Irving's work. Some of the old families, 
whose sense of dignity was greater than their sense of humor, 
felt aggrieved at supposed slights on their ancestors; but 
the large majority thoroughly enjoyed the unshackled treat- 
ment of history and tradition, and the good-humored satire. 

While Irving was completing the History, he suffered a 
loss which deeply influenced his whole life. This was the 
death of Matilda Hoffman, the young girl to whom he was 
engaged. Long afterwards when time had soothed — though 
it could not take away — his sorrow, he wrote: "For years 
I could not talk on the subject of this hopeless regret; I 
could not even mention her name; but her image was con- 
tinually before me, and I dreamt of her incessantly." He 
never married, he never forgot; and to this ineffaceable 
grief we may probably trace the touch of melancholy which 
is seen all through his writings. 

We have now to consider the most important period of his 
life — the seventeen years from 1815 to 1832, which were 
spent abroad. In 1815 he went to Liverpool to take over the 
conduct of the English branch of the business from his 
brother Peter, whose health had broken down. For a time 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xi 

the young author devoted himself to the difficult task of 
reviving a firm which (through no fault of the Irvings) had 
fallen on evil days. His efforts — honestly and unsparingly 
put forth — were in vain; the house failed, and in 1818, 
thrown upon his own resources, he undertook the duty of 
helping the brothers who had so generously helped him in 
the past. A step long contemplated was now forced on him : 
he went to London to take up literature as a profession. 

The decision was a wise one. Not often has a change made 
necessary by failure in one field been followed so soon by 
enduring success in another. In 1819 there was published 
in New York the first number of The Sketch Book, by " Geof- 
frey Crayon." Six other numbers followed within two years 
and, in 1821, an edition was issued in England. Its popu- 
larity w^as immediate and lasting; Irving found himself suc- 
cessful beyond his expectations, with his future clearly 
marked out before him. 

It is interesting to note that the English publication of 
TJie Sketch Book was made under the kindly auspices of Sir 
Walter Scott, whom Irving had met at Abbotsford on the 
occasion of his first journey abroad. Knowing that his Amer- 
ican friend had suffered a reverse of fortune, Scott, with prac- 
tical and characteristic good feeling, offered him a position as 
editor of a projected magazine in Edinburgh. When Irving 
declined this appointment, Scott at once entered on other 
plans. "I am sure of one thing," he wrote, "that you have 
only to be known to the British public to be admired by 
them, and I would not say so unless I really was of that 
opinion. I trust to be in London about the middle of the 
month, and promise myself great pleasure in again shaking 
you by the hand." Irving decided to publish on his own 
account, and did so through an obscure bookseller. The 
bookseller failed. "At this juncture," says Irving, "Scott 
arrived in London. I called to him for help, as I was sticking 
in the mire, and more propitious than Hercules, he put his 
shoulder to the wheel." A new publisher was quickly 



xii WASHINGTON IRVING. 

found — the best in London — and the Sketch Book, which 
Scott had termed "positively beautiful," was safely launched. 
The whole episode was typical of the generous Scotchman; 
Irving's tribute does credit to both the friends : 

Thus, under the kind and genial auspices of Sir Walter Scott, I 
began my literary career in Europe; and I feel that I am but dis- 
charging, in a trifling degree, my debt of gratitude to that golden 
hearted man in acknowledging my indebtedness to him. — But who 
of his literary contemporaries ever applied to him for aid or comfort 
that did not experience the most prompt, generous, and effectual 
assistance? 

His next works were Bracebridge Hall and Tales of a 
Traveller, both published before 1825. The former contains 
a charming series of sketches of life at an old English coun- 
try-seat; the latter is a collection of miscellaneous stories, 
supposed to be told at an inn on the Rhine. Both are 
"sketch-books," though neither possesses quite the same 
merit as the original volume. All three, however, show a 
style of finished excellence, and the mastery of a new lit- 
erary form — the short story. 

After some ten years abroad, spent chiefly in England, he 
felt the need for fresh inspiration. From early days the 
romantic history and the picturesque legends of Spain had 
appealed to his imagination; he was definitely attracted to 
Madrid in 1826 by the suggestion that he should translate a 
Spanish book about Columbus. Attached nominally to the 
American Legation, he had every opportunity for research. 
He remained in Spain for three years, and collected material 
for two histories later published — The Life of Columbus 
and The Voyages of the Companions of Columbus. "What a 
country it is for a traveller," he said, "where the most miser- 
able inn is as full of adventures as an enchanted castle, and 
every meal is in itself an achievement." 

His interest next was strongly drawn to the part played 
by the Moors in Spanish history. The Conquest of Granada 
tells the story of the ten years' war between the Mogrs and 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xiii 

the Spaniards, which led to the downfall of the Moorish 
dominion after seven centuries. Another book. Tales of 
the Alhamhra, grew out of a three months' residence in the 
Alhambra, the ancient fortified palace of the Moorish kings ; 
an experience which gave him great delight. "Here I am, 
nestled in one of the most remarkable, romantic, and deli- 
cious spots in the world. It absolutely appears to me like 
a dream, or as if I am spell-bound in some fairy palace." 
These feelings beautifully color the Tales of the Alhamhra^ 
which form a Spanish sketch book, steeped in the atmosphere 
of old romance. 

In spite of his preoccupation with literary work, Irving's 
position at the Legation in Madrid would seem to have been 
more than a sinecure, for in 1829 he was appointed Secretary 
to the American Legation in London. He was welcomed in 
England with the friendliness which he everywhere com- 
manded — "he came amongst us," says Thackeray, "bring- 
ing the kindest sympathy, the most artless, smiling good- 
will." And more than friendliness awaited him. The Royal 
Society of Literature presented him with a gold medal, and 
Oxford University conferred the Degree of D.C.L. — highest 
in its gift — in recognition of his accomplishment as a 
writer. It is pleasant to know that with all the fame of these 
years there had come also moderate wealth; he was now in 
comfortable circumstances and his invalid brother was pro- 
vided for. 

He returned to New York in 1832, and was greeted with 
tributes of admiration and affection which were sorely trying 
to a man of his natural modesty. Many changes had come 
about during his long absence. New York had grown almost 
out of his knowledge. The West had been widely explored 
and settled. Eager to see the new lands beyond the Missis- 
sippi — an unknown wilderness in the days of his youth — 
he joined a Government Commission to the Indian tribes of 
the great plains. His experiences are recounted in A Tour of 
the Prairies. 



xiv WASHINGTON IRVING. 

Upon coming back from the West he purchased a small 
farm on the Hudson near Tarrytown and Sleepy Hollow. 
The place with its old' stone cottage he named "Sunnyside," 
and realized at last after so many years of roving the desire 
which he had expressed long ago: "If ever I should wish for 
a retreat whither I might steal from the world and its dis- 
tractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a troubled 
life, I know of none more promising than this little valley." 
Here for some years he enjoyed a life of "lettered ease," 
a loved and honored figure. He published Legends of the 
Conquest of Spain, and Recollections of Abhotsford and New- 
stead Abbey — the latter giving his memories of Scott and 
Byron — and edited The Journal of Captain Bonneville and 
Astoria, an account of the attempt of John Jacob Astor to 
found a settlement at the mouth of the Columbia River. He 
was interested, too, in The Knickerbocker Magazine, founded 
in 1832 by Charles Fenno Hoffman, and the forerunner of 
Harper's and The Century. Among its contributors, beside 
Irving, were Bryant, Halleck, Willis, Boker and Bayard 
Taylor, a notable group of writers who formed what is often 
spoken of as the "Knickerbocker School." 

A letter written by Charles Dickens about this time 
reflects very justly the fame and personality of Irving. 

My dear Sir, 

There is no man in the world who could have given me the heart- 
felt pleasure you have, by your kind note of the thirteenth of last 
month. There is no living writer, and there are very few among the 
dead, whose approbation I should feel so proud to earn. And with 
everything you have written upon my shelves, and in my thoughts, 
and in my heart of hearts, I may honestly and truly say so. If you 
could know how earnestly I write this, you would be glad to read it 
— as I hope you will be, faintly guessing at the warmth of the hand 
I autographically hold out to you over the broad Atlantic. 

I wish I could find in your welcome letter some hint of an inten- 
tion to visit England. ... I should love to go with you — as I have 
gone, God knows how often — into Little Britain, and Eastcheap, 
and Green Arbour Court, and Westminster Abbey. I should like to 
travel with you, outside the last of the coaches down to Bracebridge 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xv 

Hall. It would make my heart glad to compare notes with you . . . 
about all tliose delightful places and people that I used to walk 
about and dream of in the daytime, when a very small and not over- 
particularly-taken-care-of little boy. I have . . . much to hear 
concerning Moorish legend, and poor unhappy Boabdil. Diedrich 
Knickerbocker I have worn to death in my pocket, and yet I should 
show you his mutilated carcase with a joy past all expression. 

My dear Washington Irving, I cannot thank you enough for your 
cordial and generous praise, or tell you what deep and lasting grati- 
fication it has given me. 

When Dickens made his first visit to America in 1842, the 
two men met. "Washington Irving is a great fellow," wrote 
the brilliant young novelist. "We have laughed most 
heartily together. He is just the man he ought to be." 

The quiet life at Sunnyside was at last broken in upon. 
With Irving's intimate knowledge of European affairs, it 
was only natural that he should be called on for further 
diplomatic service. In 1842 he received appointment as 
Minister to Spain. The position came unsought; he had 
already refused several other offers of civic or national 
responsibility. But the call seemed imperative; he pos- 
sessed, moreover, a close acquaintance with Spanish life and 
enjoyed the friendliest relations with the Spanish people. 
He accepted the post, therefore, and during the next four 
years discharged his duties with marked success at a period 
of considerable political unrest. 

Thirteen years remained to him, which were passed hap- 
pily at Sunnyside — the peaceful closing of a long and fortu- 
nate career. Up to the very end his pen was busy. He pub- 
lished in 1849 a Life of Goldsmith, and in 1850 Mahomet and 
his Successors, the last of the studies in subjects connected 
with Spanish history which had so strongly engaged his 
interest. Wolf erf s Roost, a collection of occasional sketches, 
appeared in 1855. The monumental Life of Washington, 
which he himself regarded as his greatest contribution to the 
literature of his country, was completed in four volumes, the 
last appearing in the year of his death. He died at his home 
on the Hudson on November 28, 1859. 



xvi WASHINGTON IRVING. 

The period of seventy-six years covered by the life of 
Irving was marked by great changes. The development of 
steam transportation transformed the slow-moving world of 
his youth. The narrow limits of the thirteen original states 
extended west to the Pacific and south to the Rio Grande. 
In literature, notable writers had arisen — Poe, Longfellow, 
Lowell, Hawthorne, and others. The "irrepressible con- 
flict" was at hand, which was to free his country from the 
burden of slavery — a national institution in his boyhood. 
But we look in vain through the works of Irving for the 
reflection of these momentous times, or for any reference to 
the questions of the day. He stands aloof; his interests lie 
rather with the past; he is concerned with the romance and 
the beauty of times gone by. This attitude is the more 
remarkable when we consider his wide acquaintance with 
men and cities, and remember that all his literary friends 
lived and moved in the full stream of contemporary affairs. 

Yet these same friends found in him no lack of breadth or 
humanity. To them he was the dean of American letters — 
a man whom they delighted to honor. Nor do we see in 
Irving any want of human sympathy. If the bent of his 
genius led him away from the fume and stress of modern 
living, we must remember that he laid the foundations of 
American literature and breathed through all his work the 
ideals of purity, chivalry, kindly humor and good taste. If 
he did not stand in the forefront of the battle with the 
reformers of the day, he none the less drew upon a fund of 
human kindness and exercised a practical helpfulness quite 
as useful and effective as many a more pretentious creed. 

A typical incident will illustrate the point. He had 
planned for many years to tell the story of the Spanish con- 
quest of Mexico. By taste and training he was unusually 
well fitted for the task, and had collected a mass of material 
bearing upon the period. When actually at work on the 
opening chapters, he learned that William Hickling Prescott, 
a young and unknown writer, had taken up the same sub- 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. xvii 

ject. Irving at once relinquished his own plans and laid 
aside the dream of years in order that the new historian 
should have his chance. 

The best work of Irving is undoubtedly found in the four 
"sketch books" — the original volume of that name, to- 
gether with Bracebridge Hall, Tales of a Traveller, and The 
Alhavibra. The Sketch Book itself, most widely known of all 
his works, best represents the genius of the writer. The 
form was excellently adapted to his needs. The volume con- 
tains, in Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Holloio, 
the first artistic presentation of the modern short story; in 
essays such as Westminster Abbey and The Stage Coach the 
beauty of style and the fine qualities of observation, imagina- 
tion and humor which distinguish him as the most charming 
of American essayists. He was the first of a remarkable 
group of American historians, among whom Prescott, Mot- 
ley and Parkman stand preeminent. Here he founded a 
floble tradition, and his own writings in the field — while not, 
perhaps, evincing the qualities of the trained and critical 
scholar — possess high excellence in respect of insight and 
literary art. 

The fine tribute of Thackeray, written after Irving's 
death, may fittingly close this sketch: 

The good Irving, the peaceful, the friendly, had no place for 
bitterness in his heart, and no scheme but kindness. Received in 
England with extraordinary tenderness and friendship (Scott, 
Byron, Southey, a hundred others have borne witness to their liking 
for him) he was a messenger of goodwill and peace. ... Of his works, 
was not his life the best part.^ In society a delightful example of 
complete gentlemanhood ; quite unspoiled by prosperity; eager to 
acknowledge every contemporary's merit; always kind and affable 
to the younger members of his calling; in his professional bargains 
and mercantile dealings delicately honest and grateful; one of the 
most charming masters of our lighter language; to men of letters 
doubly dear, not for his wit and genius merely, but as an exemplar 
of goodness, probity and pure life. 



INTRODUCTION TO RIP VAN WINKLE. 

The story of Rip Van Winkle purported to have beem 
written by Diedrich Knickerbocker, who was a humorous in- 
vention of Irving's, and whose name was familiar to the pub- 
lic as the author of A History of New York. The History 
was published in 1809, but it was ten years more before 
the first number of The Sketch Book of Geoffrey Crayon, 
Gent., was published. This number, which contained Rip 
Van Winkle, was, like succeeding numbers, written by Ir- 
ving in England and sent home to America for publication. 
He laid the scene of the story in the Kaatskills, but he drew 
upon his imagination and the reports of others for the scen- 
ery, not visiting the spot until 1833. The story is not ab- 
solutely new ; the fairy tale of The Sleeping Beauty in the 
Wood has the same theme ; so has the story of Epimenides 
of Crete, who lived in the sixth or seventh century before 
Christ. He was said to have fallen asleep in a cave when 
a boy, and to have awaked at the end of fifty-seven years, 
his soul, meanwhile, having been growing in stature. There 
13 the legend also of the Seven Sleepers of Ephesus, Chris- 
tian martyrs who were walled into a cave to which they had 
fled for refuge, and there were miraculously preserved for 
two centuries. Among the stories in which the Harz Moun- 
tains of Germany are so prolific is one of Peter Klaus, a 
goatherd who was accosted one day by a young man who 
silently beckoned him to follow, and led him to a secluded 
spot, where he found twelve knights playing, voiceless, at 
skittles. He saw a can of wine which was very fragrant, 
and, drinking of it, was thrown into a deep sleep, from 
which he did not wake for twenty years. The story gives 



^ WASHINGTON IRVING, 

incidents of his awaking and of the changes which he found 
in the village to which he returned. This story, which was 
published with others in 1800, may very likely have been 
the immediate suggestion to Irving, who has taken nearly 
the same framework. The humorous additions which he 
has made, and the grace with which he has invested the 
tale, have caused his story to supplant earlier ones in the 
popular mind, so that Rip Van Winkle has passed into 
familiar speech, and allusions to him are clearly understood 
by thousands who have never read Irving's story. The 
recent dramatizing of the story, though following the out- 
line only, has done much to fix the conception of the cliar-^ 
acter. The story appeals very directly to a common senti- 
ment of curiosity as to the future, which is not far removed 
from what some have regarded as an instinct of the human 
mind pointing to personal immortality. The name Van 
Winkle was happily chosen by Irving, but not invented by 
him. The printer of the Sketch Book, for one, bore the 
name. The name Knickerbocker, also, is among the Dutch 
names, but Irving's use of it has made it representative. In 
The Author's Apology, which he prefixed to a new edition 
of the History of New York, he says : "I find its very 
name become a ' household word,' and used to give the 
home stamp to everything recommended for popular accep- 
tation, such as Knickerbocker societies ; Knickerbocker in- 
surance companies ; Knickerbocker steamboats ; Knicker- 
bocker omnibuses, Knickerbocker bread, and Knickerbocker 
ice ; and . . . New Yorkers of Dutch descent priding them 
selves upon being ' genuine Knickerbockers.' " 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 

A POSTHUMOUS WRITING OF DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCEER 

By Woden, God of Saxons, 

From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday. 

Truth is a thing that ever I will keep 

Unto thylke day in which I creep into 

My sepulchre. Caetweight.* 

The following tale was found among the papers of the late 
Diedrich Knickerbocker, au old gentleman of New York, who 
was very curious in the Dutch history of the province, and the 
manners of the descendants from its primitive settlers. His his- 
torical researches, however, did not lie so much among books 
as among men ; for the former are lamentably scanty on his 
favorite topics ; whereas he found the old burghers, and still 
more their wives, rich in that legendary lore so invaluable to 
true history. Whenever, therefore, he happened upon a genuine 
Dutch family, snugly shut up in its low-roofed farmhouse under 
a spreading sycamore, he looked upon it as a little clasped vol- 
ume of black-letter, and studied it with the zeal of a book-worm. 

The result of all these researches was a history of the province 
during the reign of the Dutch governors, which he published 
some years since. There have been various opinions as to the 
literary character of his work, and, to tell the truth, it is not a 
whit better than it should be. Its chief merit is its scrupulous 
accuracy, which indeed was a little questioned on its first appear- 
ance, but has since been completely established ; and it is now 
admitted into all historical collections, as a book of unquestion- 
able authority. 

The old gentleman died shortly after the publication of his 
work, and now that he is dead and gone, it cannot do much harm 

' William Cartwright, 1611-1643, was a friend and disciple of 
&en Jonson. 



6 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

to liis memory ^ to say that his time might have been much beT> 
ter employed in weightier labors. He,, however, was apt to ride 
his hobby his own way ; and though it did now and then kick up 
the dust a little in the eyes of his neighbors, and grieve the spirit 
of some friends, for whom he felt the truest deference and affec- 
tion ; yet his errors and follies are remembered " more in sorrow 
than in anger," and it begins to be suspected that he never in- 
tended to injure or offend. But however his memory may be 
appreciated by critics, it is still held dear by many folk, whose 
good opinion is worth having ; particularly by certain biscuit- 
bakers, who have gone so far as to imprint his likeness on their 
new-year cakes ; ^ and have thus given him a chance for immor- 
tality, almost equal to the being stamped on a Waterloo Medal, 
dr a Queen Anne's Farthing.^ 

1 The History of New York had given offence to many old 
New Yorkers because of its saucy treatment of names which 
were held in veneration as those of founders of families, and its 
general burlesque of Dutch character. Among the critics was a 
warm friend of Irving, Gulian C. Verplanck, who in a discourse 
before the New York Historical Society plainly said : " It is 
painful to see a mind, as admirable for its exquisite perception 
of the beautiful as it is for its quick sense of the ridiculous, wast- 
ing the richness of its fancy on an ungrateful theme, and its 
exuberant humor in a coarse caricature.'* Irving took the cen- 
sure good-naturedly, and as he read Verplanck's words just as 
he was finishing the story of Rip Van Winkle^ he gave them this 
playful notice in the introduction. 

2 An oblong seed-cake, still made in New York at New Year's 
time, and of Dutch origin. 

3 There was a popular story that only three farthings were 
struck in Queen Anne's reign ; that two were in public keeping, 
and that the third was no one knew where, but that its lucky 
finder would be able to hold it at an enormous price. As a mat- 
ter of fact there were eight coinings of farthings in the reign of 
Queen Anne, and numismatists do not set p. high value on the 
piece 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 9 

Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must 
remember the Kaatskill Mountains. They are a dis- 
membered branch of the great Appalachian family, 
and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling 
up to a noble height, and lording it over the surround- 
ing country. Every change of season, every change 
of weather, indeed, every hour of the day, produces 
some change in the magical hues and shapes of these 
mountains, and they are regarded by all the good 
wives, far and near, as perfect barometers. When the 
weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in blue 
and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear 
evening sky ; but sometimes when the rest of the land- 
scape is cloudless they will gather a hood of gray 
vapors about their summits, which, in the last rays of 
the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of 
glory. 

At the foot of these fairy ^ mountains, the voyager 
may have descried the light smoke curling up from a 
village, whose shingle-roofs gleam among the trees, 
just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into 
the fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little 
village of great antiquity, having been founded by 
some of the Dutch colonists in the early time of the 
province, just about the beginning of the government 
of the good Peter Stuyvesant,^ (y^^J he rest in peace I) 
and there were some of the houses of the original set- 
tlers standing within a few years, built of small yellow 

i A light touch to help the reader into a proper spirit for re- 
-eeiving the tale. 

2 Stuyvesant was governor of New Netherlands from 1647 to 
1664. He plays an important part in Knickerbocker'' s History of 
New York, as he did in a(^tual life. Until quite recently a peai 
tree was shown on the Bowery, said to have been planted hj 
him. 



10 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

bricks brought from Holland, having latticed windows 
and gable fronts, surmounted with weathercocks. 

In that same village, and in one of these very houses 
(which, to tell the precise truth, was sadly time-worn 
and weather-beaten), there lived many years since, 
while the country was yet a province of Great Britaiuj 
a simple, good-natured fellow, of the name of Rip Van 
Winkle. He was a descendant of the Van Winkles 
who figured so gallantly in the chivalrous days of 
Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege 
of Fort Christina.^ He inherited, however, but little 
of the martial character of his ancestors. I have 
observed that he was a simple, good-natured man ; he 
was, moreover, a kind neighbor, and an obedient hen- 
pecked husband. Indeed, to the latter circumstance 
might be owing that meekness of spirit which gained 
him such universal popularity ; for those men are 
most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, 
who are under the discipline of shrews at home. 
Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant and mal- 
leable in the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation ; and 
a curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in the world 
for teaching the virtues of patience and long-suffering. 
A termagant wife may, therefore, in some respects be 
considered a tolerable blessing, and if so. Rip Van 
Winkle was thrice blessed. 

Certain it is, that he was a great favorite among all 
the good wives of the village, who, as usual with the 
amiable sex, took his part in all family squabbles; 
and never failed, whenever they talked those matters 

^ The Van Winkles appear in the illustrious catalogue of 
heroes who accompanied Stuyvesant to Fort Christina, and were 

*' Urimful of wrath and cabbage." 

See History of New Yorkj book VI. chap. viii. 



HIP FAN WINKLE 11 

over m tlieii evening gossipings, to lay aH the blame 
on Dame Van Winkle. The children of the village, 
too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. 
He assisted at their sports, made their playthings, 
taught them to fly kites and shoot marbles, and told 
them long stories of ghosts, witches, and Indians, 
Whenever he went dodging about the village, he was 
surrounded by a troop of them, hanging on his skirts^ 
slambering on his back, and playing a thousand tricks 
on him with impunity ; and not a dog would bark at 
him throughout the neighborhood. 

The great error in Rip's composition was an insu- 
perable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor. It 
could not be from the want of assiduity or persevere 
ance ; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as 
long and heavy as a Tartar's lance, and fish all day 
without a murmur, even though he should not be en- 
couraged by a single nibble. He would carry a fowl- 
ing-piece on his shoulder for hours together, trudging 
through woods and swamps, and up hill and down 
dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He 
would never refuse to assist a neighbor, even in the 
roughest toil, and was a foremost man at all country 
frolics for husking Indian corn, or building stone- 
fences ; the women of the village, too, used to employ 
him to run their errands, and to do such little odd 
jobs as their less obliging husbands would not do for 
them. In a word. Rip was ready to attend to any> 
body's business but his own ; but as to doing family 
duty, and keeping his farm in order, he found it im- 
possible. 

In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his 
farm ; it was the most pestilent little piece of ground 
in the whole country; everything about it went wrongj 



1^ WASHINGTON IRVING, 

and would go wrong, in spite of him. His fences 
were continually falling to pieces ; his cow would either 
go astray or get among the cabbages ; weeds were sure 
to grow quicker in his fields than anywhere else ; the 
rain always made a point of setting in just as he had 
some out-door work to do ; so that though his patri- 
monial estate had dwindled away under his manage^ 
ment, acre by acre, until there was little more left 
than a mere patch of Indian corn and potatoes, yet it 
was the worst-conditioned farm in the neighborhood. 

His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if 
they belonged to nobody. His son Rip, an urchin be- 
gotten in his own likeness, promised to inherit the 
habits, with the old clothes of his father. He was 
generally seen trooping like a colt at his mother's 
heels, equipped in a pair of his father's cast-off galli- 
gaskins, which he had much ado to hold up with one 
hand, as a fine lady does her train in bad weather. 

Kip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy 
mortals, of foolish, well-oiled dispositions, who take the 
world easy, eat white bread or brown, whichever can 
be got with least thought or trouble, and would rather 
starve on a penny than work for a pound. If left to 
himself, he would have whistled life away in perfect 
contentment ; but his wife kept continually dinning in 
his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and the 
ruin he was bringing on his family. Morning, noon^ 
and night her tongue was incessantly going, and every- 
thing he said or did was sure to produce a torrent of 
household eloquence. Rip had but one way of reply- 
ing to all lectures of the kind, and that, by frequent 
use, had grown into a habit. He shrugged his shoul- 
ders, shook his head, cast up his eyes, but said no- 
thing. This, however, always provoked a fresh volley 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 13 

from his wife ; so that he was fain to draw off his 
forces, and take to the outside of the house — the only 
side which, in truth, belongs to a henpecked husband. 

Rip's sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who 
^as as much henpecked as his master ; for Dame Van 
Winkle regarded them as companions in idleness, and 
3ven looked upon Wolf with an evil eye, as the cause 
of his master's going so often astray. True it is, in 
all points of spirit befitting an honorable dog, he was 
as courageous an animal as ever scoured the woods — 
but what courage can withstand the ever-during and 
all-besetting terrors of a woman's tongue ? The mo- 
ment Wolf entered the house his crest fell, his tail 
drooped to the ground, or curled between his legs, he 
sneaked about with a gallows air, casting many a side- 
long glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least 
flourish of a broomstick or ladle he would fly to the 
door with yelping precipitation. 

Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle 
as years of matrimony rolled on ; a tart temper never 
mellows with age, and a sharp tongue is the only edged 
tool that grows keener with constant use. For a long 
while he used to console himself, when driven from 
home, by frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the 
sages, philosophers, and other idle personages of the 
v^illage ; which held its sessions on a bench before a 
small inn, designated by a rubicund portrait of His 
Majesty George the Third. Here they used to sit in 
the shade through a long lazy summer's day, talking 
listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless sleepy 
stories about nothing. But it would have been worth 
any statesman's money to have heard the profound dis- 
cussions that sometimes took place, when by chance an 
old newspaper fell into their hands from some passing 



14 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

traveller. How solemnly they would listen to the con- 
tents, as drawled out by Derrick Van Bummel, the 
school-master, a dapper learned little man, who was 
not to be daunted by the most gigantic word in the 
dictionary ; and how sagely they would deliberate upon 
public events some months after they had taken place. 

The opinions of this junto were completely con- 
trolled by Nicholas Vedder, a patriarch of the village, 
and landlord of the inn, at the door of which he 
took his seat from morning till night, just moving suf- 
ficiently to avoid the sun and keep in the shade of a 
large tree ; so that the neighbors could tell the hour by 
his movements as accurately as by a sun-dial. It is 
true he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his pipe 
incessantly. His adherents, however (for every great 
man has his adherents), perfectly understood him, and 
knew how to gather his opinions. When anything 
that was read or related displeased him, he was ob- 
served to smoke his pipe vehemently, and to send forth 
short, frequent and angry puffs ; but when pleased, he 
would inhale the smoke slowly and tranquilly, and 
emit it in light and placid clouds ; and sometimes, tak- 
ing the pipe from his mouth, and letting the fragrant 
vapor curl about his nose, would gravely nod his head 
in token of perfect approbation. 

From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at 
length routed by his termagant wife, who would sud- 
denly break in upon the tranquillity of the assemblage 
and call the members all to naught ; nor was that 
august personage, Nicholas Yedder himself, sacred 
from the daring tongue of this terrible virago, who 
charged him outright with encouraging her husband m 
habits of idleness. 

Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair | 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 15 

and his only alternative, to escape from the labor o\ 
the farm and clamor of his wife, was to take gun in 
hand and stroll away into the woods. Here he would 
sometimes seat himself at the foot of a tree, and share 
the contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he 
sympathized as a fellow-sufferer in persecution. " Poor 
Wolf," he would say, "thy mistress leads thee a dog's 
life of it ; but never mind, my lad, whilst I live thou 
shalt never want a friend to stand by thee ! " Wolf 
would wag his tail, look wistfully in his master's face, 
and if dogs can feel pity I verily believe he recipro 
cated the sentiment with all his heart. 

In a long ramble of the kind on a fine autumnal 
day, Rij) had unconsciously scrambled to one of the 
highest parts of the Kaatskill Mountains. He was 
after his favorite sport of squirrel shooting, and the 
still solitudes had echoed and reechoed with the re- 
ports of his gun. Panting and fatigued, he threw 
himself, late in the afternoon, on a green knoll, cov- 
ered with mountain herbage, that crowned the brow 
of a precipice. From an opening between the trees 
he could overlook all the lower country for many a 
mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance the 
lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent 
but majestic course, with the reflection of a purple 
cloud, or the sail of a lagging bark, here and there 
sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing itself m 
the blue highlands. 

On the other side he looked down into a deep moun- 
tain glen, wild, lonely, and shagged, the bottom filled 
vv^ith fragments from the impending cliffs, and scarcely 
lighted by the reflected rays of the setting sun. For 
some time Rip lay musing on this scene ; evening was 
gradually advancing ; the mountains began to throw 



16 WASHINGTON IRVING, 

their long blue shadows over the valleys ; he saw that 
it would be dark long before he could reach the village, 
and he heaved a heavy sigh when he thought of en- 
countering the terrors of Dame Van Winkle. 

As he was about to descend, he heard a voice from 
a distance, hallooing, " Eip Van Winkle ! Rip Van 
Winkle ! " He looked round, but could see nothing 
but a crow winging its solitary flight across the moun= 
taiuo He thought his fancy must have deceived him, 
and turned again to descend, when he heard the same 
cry ring through the still evening air: "Rip Van 
Winkle ! Rip Van Winkle ! " — at the same time Wolf 
bristled up his back, and giving a low growl, skulked 
to his master's side, looking fearfully down into the 
glen. Rip now felt a vague apprehension stealing 
over him ; he looked anxiously in the same direction, 
and perceived a strange figure slowly toiling up the 
rocks, and bending under the weight of something he 
carried on his back. He was surprised to see any 
human being in this lonely and unfrequented place | 
but supposing it to be some one of the neighborhood 
in need of his assistance, he hastened down to yield it. 

On nearer approach he was still more surprised at 
the singularity of the stranger's appearance. He was 
a short, square-built old fellow, with thick bushy hair, 
and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique 
Dutch fashion : a cloth jerkin strapped round the 
waist, several pair of breeches, the outer one of ample 
volume, decorated with rows of buttons down the 
sides, and bunches at the knees. He bore on his 
shoulder a stout keg, that seemed full of liquor, and 
made signs for Rip to approach and assist him with 
the ]oad> Though rather shy and distrustful of this 
new acquaintance, Rip complied with his usual alac 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 17 

rity ; and mutually relieving one another, they clam 
bered up a narrow gully, apparently the dry bed of a 
diountain torrent. As they ascended. Rip every now 
and then heard long rolling peals like distant thunder, 
that seemed to issue out of a deep ravine, or rather 
cleft, between lofty rocks, toward which their rugged 
path conducted. He paused for a moment, but sup- 
posing it to be the muttering of one of those transient 
thunder-showers which often take place in mountain 
heights, he proceeded. Passing through the ravine, 
they came to a hollow, like a small amphitheatre, sur- 
rounded by perpendicular precipices, over the brinks 
of which impending trees shot their branches, so that 
you only caught glimpses of the azure sky and the 
bright evening cloud. During the whole time Eip and 
his companion had labored on in silence ; for though 
the former marvelled greatly what could be the object 
of carrying a keg of liquor up this wild mountain, yet 
there was something strange and incomprehensible 
about the unknown, that inspired awe and checked 
familiarity. 

On entering the amphitheatre, new objects of wonder 
presented themselves. On a level spot in the centre 
was a company of odd-looking personages playing at 
ninepins. They were dressed in a quaint outlandish 
fashion ; some wore short doublets, others jerkins, with 
long knives in their belts, and most of them had enor 
mous breeches of similar style with that of the guide's. 
Their visages, too, were peculiar; one had a large 
beard, broad face, and small piggish eyes ; the face of 
another seemed to consist entirely of nose, and was 
surmounted by a white sugar-loaf hat, set off with a 
little red cock's tail. They all had beards, of various 
shapes and colors. There was one who seemed to be 



18 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

the commander. He was a stout old gentleman, with 
a weather-beaten countenance ; he wore a laced doub- 
let, broad belt and hanger, high-crowned hat and 
feather, red stockings, and high-heeled shoes, with 
roses in them. The whole group reminded Rip of the 
figures in an old Flemish painting in the parlor of 
Dominie Van Shaick, the village parson, which had 
been brought over from Holland at the time of the 
settlement. 

What seemed particularly odd to Rip was, that 
though these folks were evidently amusing themselves, 
yet they maintained the gravest faces, the most mys- 
terious silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy 
party of pleasure he had ever witnessed. Nothing 
interrupted the stillness of the scene but the noise of 
the balls, which, whenever they were rolled, echoed 
along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder. 

As Rip and his companion approached them, they 
suddenly desisted from their play, and stared at him 
with such fixed, statue-like gaze, and such strange, un- 
couth, lack-lustre countenances, that his heart turned 
within him, and his knees smote together. His com- 
panion now emptied the contents of the keg into large 
flagons, and made signs to him to wait upon the com- 
pany. He obeyed with fear and trembling; they 
quaffed the liquor in profound silence, and then re- 
turned to their game. 

By degrees Rip's awe and apprehension subsided. 
He even ventured, when no eye was fixed upon him, to 
taste the beverage, which he found had much of the 
flavor of excellent Hollands. He was naturally a 
thirsty soul, and was soon tempted to repeat the 
draught. One taste provoked another ; and he reiter- 
ated his visits to the flagon so often that at length his 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 19 

senses were overpowered, his eyes swam in Lis head, 
his head gradually declined, and he fell into a deep 
sleep. 

On waking, he found himself on the green knoll 
whence he had first seen the old man of the glen. 
He rubbed his eyes — it was a bright, sunny morning, 
The birds were hopping and twittering among tht 
bushes, and the eagle was wheeling aloft, and breast- 
ing the pure mountain breeze. " Surely," thought 
Rip, " I have not slept here all night." He recalled 
the occurrences before he fell asleep. The strange 
man with a keg of liquor — the mountain ravine — 
the wild retreat among the rocks — the woe-begone 
party at nine-pins — the flagon — " Oh ! that flagon ! 
that wicked flagon ! " thought Kip — " what excuse 
shall I make to Dame Yan Winkle ? " 

He looked round for his gun, but in place of the 
clean, well-oiled fowling-piece, he found an old fire- 
lock lying by him, the barrel incrusted with rust, the 
lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He now 
suspected that the grave roisters of the mountain had 
put a trick upon him, and, having dosed him with li- 
quor, had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had dis- 
appeared, but he might have strayed away after a 
squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him, and 
shouted his name, but all in vain ; the echoes repeated 
his whistle and shout, but no dog was to be seen. 

He determined to revisit the scene of the last even- 
ing's gambol, and if he met with any of the party, to 
demand his dog and gun. As he . rose to walk, he 
found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his 
usual activity. " These mountain beds do not agree 
with me," thought Rip, " and if this frolic should lay 
me up with a fit of the rheumatism, I shall have a 



20 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

blessed time with Dame Van Winkle." With some 
difficulty he got down into the glen ; he found the 
gully up which he and his companion had ascended 
the preceding evening ; but to his astonishment a 
mountain stream was now foaming down it, leaping 
from rock to rock, and filling the glen with babbling 
murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble up its 
sides, working his toilsome way through thickets of 
birch, sassafras, and witch-hazel, and sometimes 
tripped up or entangled by the wild grapevines that 
twisted their coils or tendrils from tree to tree, and 
spread a kind of network in his path. 

At length he reached to where the ravine had 
opened through the cliffs to the amphitheatre ; but no 
traces of such opening remained. The rocks presented 
a high, impenetrable wall, over which the torrent came 
tumbling in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a 
broad, deep basin, black from the shadows of the sur- 
rounding forest. Here, then, poor Rip was brought 
to a stand. He again called and whistled after his 
dog ; he was only answered by the cawing of a flock 
of idle crows, sporting high in air about a dry tree 
that overhung a sunny precipice ; and who, secure in 
iheir elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the 
poor man's perplexities. What was to be done ? the 
morning was passing away, and Rip felt famished for 
want of his breakfast. He grieved to give up his dog 
and gun ; he dreaded to meet his wife ; but it would 
Aot do to starve among the mountains. He shook his 
head, shouldered the rusty firelock, and, with a heart 
full of trouble and anxiety, turned his steps home- 
iv^ard. 

As he approached the village he met a number of 
people, but none whom he knew, which somewhat sui> 



RIP VAN WINjyLE. 21 

prised him, for he had thought himself acquainted 
with every one in the country round. Their dress, 
too, was of a different fashion from that to which he 
was accustomed. They all stared at him with equal 
marks of surprise, and whenever they cast their eyes 
upon him, invariably stroked their chins. The con- 
stant recurrence of this gesture induced Rij), involun- 
tarily, to do the same, when, to his astonishment, he 
found his beard had grown a foot long ! 

He had now entered the skirts of the villasfe. A 
troop of strange children ran at his heels, hooting 
after him, and pointing at his gray beard. The dogs, 
too, not one of which he recognized for an old ac- 
quaintance, barked at him as he passed. The very 
village was altered ; it was larger and more populous. 
There were rows of houses which he had never seen 
before, and those which had been his familiar haunts 
had disappeared. Strange names were over the doors 
— strange faces at the windows, — everything was 
strange. His mind now misgave him ; he began to 
doubt whether both he and the world around him 
were not bewitched. Surely this was his native vil- 
lage, which he had left but the day before. There 
stood the Kaatskill Mountains — there ran the silver 
Hudson at a distance — there was every hill and dale 
precisely as it had always been — Rip was sorely per- 
plexed — " That flagon last night," thought he, " has 
<>ddled my poor head sadly ! " 

It was with some difficulty that he found the way 
fco his own house, which he approached with silent 
awe, expecting every moment to hear the shrill voice 
of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house gone to 
Jecay — the roof fallen in, the windows shattered, 
and the doors off the hinges. A half-starved dog that 



22 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

looked like WoK was skulking about it. Kip called 
liim by name, but tbe cur snarled, showed his teeth, 
and passed on. This was an unkind cut indeed — 
"My very dog," sighed poor Rip, "has forgotten 
me!" 

He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame 
Van Winkle had always kept in neat order. It was 
ampty, forlorn, and apparently abandoned. This deso- 
lateness overcame all his connubial fears — he called 
loudly for his wife and children — the lonely cham. 
bers rang for a moment with his voice, and then again 
all was silence. 

He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old re- 
sort, the village inn — but it, too, was gone. A large, 
rickety wooden building stood in its place, with great 
gaping windows, some of them broken and mended 
with old hats and petticoats, and over the door was 
painted, " The Union Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle.'^ 
Instead of the great tree that used to shelter the quiet 
little Dutch inn of yore, there now was reared a tall 
naked pole, with something on the top that looked like 
a red night-cap, and from it was fluttering a flag, on 
which was a singular assemblage of stars and stripes 
— all this was strange and incomprehensible. He 
recognizea on the sign, however, the ruby face of 
King George, under which he had smoked so many a 
peaceful pipe ; but even this was singularly metamor- 
phosed. The red coat was changed for one of blue 
and buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a 
sceptre, the head was decorated with a cocked hat, 
and underneath was painted in large characters, Gen- 
eral Washington. 

There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door^ 
but none that Rip recollected. The very character of 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 28 

fche people seemed changed. There was a busy^ bus- 
tling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the accus- 
tomed phlegm and drowsy tranquillity. He looked in 
vain for the sage Nicholas Vedder, with his broad 
face, double chin, and fair long pipe, uttering clouds 
of tobacco-smoke instead of idle speeches ; or Van 
Bummel, the school-master, doling forth the contents 
of an ancient newspaper. In place of these, a lean, 
bilious-looking fellow, with his pockets full of hand- 
bills, was haranguing vehemently about rights of citi- 
zens — elections — members of congress — • liberty — 
Bunker's Hill — heroes of seventy-six — and other 
words, which were a perfect Babylonish jargon to the 
bewildered Van Winkle. 

The appearance of Rip, with his long grizzled beard, 
his rusty fowling-piece, his uncouth dress, and an army 
of women and children at his heels, soon attracted 
the attention of the tavern-politicians. They crowded 
round him, eying him from head to foot with great 
curiosity. The orator bustled up to him, and, draw- 
ing him partly aside, inquired " on which side he 
voted ? " Rip started in vacant stupidity. Another 
short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm, 
and, rising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear, " Whether 
he was Federal or Democrat ? " Rip was equally at 
?. loss to comprehend the question ; when a knowing, 
self-important old gentleman, in a sharp cocked hat. 
made his way through the crowd, putting them to the 
right and left with his elbows as he passed, and plant- 
ing himself before Van Winkle, with one arm akimbo, 
the other resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp 
hat penetrating, as it were, into his very soul, de- 
manded in an austere tone, '^ what brought him to the 
election with a gun on his shoulder, and a mob at his 



24 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

heels, and whether he meant to breed a riot in the 
village ? " — " Alas ! gentlemen," cried Rip, somewhat 
dismayed, " I am a poor quiet man, a native of the 
place, and a loyal subject of the king, God bless 
him ! " 

Here a general shout burst from the bystanders — 
^' A tory ! a tory ! a spy ! a refugee ! hustle him \ 
away with him ! " It was with great difficulty that 
the self-important man in the cocked hat restored 
order; and, having assumed a tenfold austerity of 
brow, demanded again of the unknown culprit what 
he came there for, and whom he was seeking ? The 
poor man humbly assured him that he meant no harm, 
but merely came there in search of some of his neigh- 
bors, who used to keep about the tavern. 

" Well — who are they ? — name them." 

Rip bethought himself a moment, and inquired^ 
" Where 's Nicholas Vedder ? " 

There was a silence for a little while, when an old 
man replied, in a thin, piping voice : " Nicholas Ved- 
der ! why, he is dead and gone these eighteen years ! 
There was a wooden tombstone in the churchyard that 
iised to tell all about him, but that 's rotten and gone 
too." 

" Where 's Brom Dutcher ? " 

" Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of 
the war ; some say he was killed at the storming of 
Stony Point ^ — others say he was drowned in a squall 
at the foot of Antony's Nose.^ I don't know — he 
never came back again." 

1 On the Hudson. The place is famous for the daring assault 
made by Mad Anthony Wayne, July 15, 1779. 

2 A few miles above Stony Point is the promontory of An- 
tony's Nose. If we are to believe Diedrich Knickerbocker, it 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 26 

** Where 's Van Bammel, the school-master ? " 

" He went off to the wars too, was a great militia 
general, and is now in Congress." 

Rip's heart died away at hearing of these sad 
(3hanges in his home and friends, and finding himself 
thus alone in the world. Every answer puzzled him 
^00, by treating of such enormous lapses of time, and 
of matters which he could not understand : war — 
Congress — Stony Point ; he had no courage to ask 
after any more friends, but cried out in despair^ 
" Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle ? " 

" Oh, Rip Van Winkle ! " exclaimed two or three, 
*' Oh, to be sure 1 that 's Rip Van Winkle yonder, lean- 
ing against the tree." 

Rip looked, and beheld a precise counterpart of 
himself, as he went up the mountain : apparently as 
lazy, and certainly as ragged. The poor fellow was 
now completely confounded. He doubted his own 
identity, and whether he was himself or another man. 

was named after Antony Van Corlear, Stuyvesant's trumpeter. 
" It must be known, then, that the nose of Antony the trum- 
peter was of a very lusty size, strutting boldly from his counte- 
nance like a mountain of Golconda. . . . Now thus it happened, 
that bright and early in the morning the good Antony, having 
washed his burly visage, was leaning over the quarter railing of 
the galley, contemplating it in the glassy wave below. Just at 
this moment the illustrious sun, breaking in all his splendor 
from behind a high bluff of the highlands, did dart one of his 
most potent beams full upon the refulgent nose of the sounder 
of brass — the reflection of which shot straightway down, hissing 
hot, into the water and killed a mighty sturgeon that was sport- 
ing beside the vessel ! . . . When this astonishing miracle came 
to be made known to Peter Stuyvesant he . . . marvelled ex- 
ceedingly ; and as a monument thereof, he gave the name of 
Antonyms Nose to a stout promontory in the neighborhood, and 
it has continued to be called Antony's Nose ever since that 
time." History of New York, book VI. chap. iv. 



26 WASHINGTON IRVING^ 

In the midst of his bewilderment, the man in the 
cocked hat demanded who he was, and what was his 
name ? 

" God knows," exclaimed he, at his wit's end ; " I 'm 
not myself — I 'm somebody else — that 's me yonder 
\ — no — that 's somebody else got into my shoes — I 
was myself last night, but I fell asleep on the moun- 
tain, and they 've changed my gun, and everything's 
changed, and I 'm changed, and I can't tell what 's my 
name, or who I am ! " 

The bystanders began now to look at each other 
nod, wink significantly, and tap their fingers against 
their foreheads. There was a whisper, also, about 
securing the gun, and keeping the old fellow from 
doing mischief, at the very suggestion of which the 
self-important man in the cocked hat retired with some 
precipitation. At this critical moment a fresh, comely 
woman pressed through the throng to get a peep at 
the gray-bearded man. She had a chubby child in her 
arms, which, frightened at his looks, began to cry. 
" Hush, Kip," cried she, " hush, you little fool ; the 
old man won't hurt you." The name of the child, the 
air of the mother, the tone of her voice, all awakened 
a train of recollections in his mind. " What is your 
name, my good woman?" asked he. 

"Judith Gardenier." 

*' And your father's name ? " 

" Ah, poor man, Eip Van Winkle was his nama 
but it 's twenty years since he went away from home 
with his gun, and never has been heard of since, — 
his dog came home without him ; but whether he shot 
himself, or was carried away by the Indians, nobodj 
ean tell. I was then but a little girl." 

Rip had but one question more to ask ; and he pui 
it with a faltering voice : — 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 27 

" Where 's your mother ? '* 

" Oh, she too had died but a short time since ; she 
broke a blood-vessel in a fit of passion at a New Eng- 
land peddler." 

There was a drop of comfort at least, in this inteL 
ligence. The honest man could contain himself no 
longer. He caught his daughter and her child in his 
arms. " I am your father ! " cried he — " Young Rip 
Van Winkle once — old Rip Van Winkle now ! Does 
nobody know poor Rip Van W inkle ? " 

All stood amazed, until an old woman tottering out 
from among the crowd, put her hand to her brow, and 
peering under it in his face for a moment, exclaimed, 
"Sure enough it is Rip Van Winkle — it is himself! 
Welcome home again, old neighbor — Why, where 
have you been these twenty long years?" 

Rip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty 
years had been to him but as one night. The neigh- 
bors stared when they heard it; some were seen to 
wink at each other, and put their tongues in their 
cheeks ; and the self-important man in the cocked hat, 
who when the alarm was over, had returned to the 
field, screwed down the corners of his mouth, and 
shook his head — upon which there was a general 
shaking of the head throughout the assemblage. 

It was determined, however, to take the opinion of 
old Peter Vanderdonk, who was seen slowly advan- 
cing up the road. He was a descendant of the histo- 
rian of that name,^ who wrote one of the earliest 
accounts of the province. Peter was the most ancient 
inhabitant of the village, and well versed in all the 
wonderful events and traditions of the neighborhood. 
He recollected Rip at once, and corroborated his story 
* Adrian Yanderdonk, 



28 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

in the most satisfactory manner. He assured tlie 
company that it was a fact, handed down from his 
ancestor the historian, that the Kaatskill Mountains 
had always been haunted by strange beings. That it 
was affirmed that the great Hendrick Hudson, the first 
discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of 
vigil there every twenty years, with his crew of the 
Half -moon ; being permitted in this way to revisit the 
scenes of his enterprise, and keep a guardian eye upon 
the river and the great city called by his name^ 
That his father had once seen them in their old Dutch 
dresses playing at ninepins in a hollow of the moun- 
tain ; and that he himself had heard, one summer 
afternoon, the sound of their balls like distant peals of 
thunder. 

To make a long story short, the company broke up, 
and returned to the more important concerns of the 
election. Rip's daughter took him home to live with 
her ; she had a snug well-furnished house, and a stout 
cheery farmer for a husband, whom Rip recollected 
for one of the urchins that used to climb upon his 
back. As to Rip's son and heir, who was the ditto of 
himself, seen leaning against the tree, he was employed 
to work on the farm ; but evinced an hereditary dis- 
position to attend to anything else but his business. 

Rip now resumed his old walks and habits ; he soon 
found many of his former cronies, though all rather 
the worse for the wear and tear of time ; and preferred 
ma,king friends among the rising generation, with 
whom he soon grew into great favor. . 

Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at 
that happy age when a man can be idle with impu- 
nity, he took his place once more on the bench at the 
j=im door, and was reverenced as one of the patriarchs 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 29 

of the village, and a chronicle of the old times " before 
the war." It was some time before he could get into 
;lie regular track of gossip, or could be made to com- 
prehend the strange events that had taken place dur- 
ing his torpor. How that there had been a revolu- 
tionary war — that the countjy had thrown off the 
yoke of old England — and that, instead of being a 
subject of his Majesty George the Third, he was now 
a free citizen of the United States. Rip, in fact, was 
no politician ; the changes of states and empires made 
but little impression on him ; but there was one spe- 
cies of despotism under which he had long groaned^ 
and that was — petticoat government. Happily that 
was at an end ; he had got his neck out of the yoke of 
matrimony, and could go in and out whenever he 
pleased, without dreading the tyranny of Dame Van 
Winkle. Whenever her name was mentioned, how- 
ever, he shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and 
cast up his eyes, which might pass either for an ex- 
pression of resignation to his fate, or joy at his deliv- 
erance. 

He used to tell his story to every stranger that ar- 
rived at Mr. Doolittle's hotel. He was observed, at 
first, to vary on some points every time he told it, 
which was, doubtless, owing to his having so recently 
awaked. It at last settled down precisely to the tale 
I have related, and not a man, woman, or child in the 
neighborhood but knew it by heart. Some always 
pretended to doubt the reality of it, and insisted that 
Rip had been out of his head, and that this was one 
point on which he always remained flighty. The old 
Dutch inhabitants, however, almost universally gave 
it full credit. Even to this day they never hear a 
thunder-storm of a summer afternoon about the Kaats- 



30 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

kill, but they say Hendrick Hudson and his crew are 
at their game of ninepins ; and it is a common wish 
of all henpecked husbands in the neighborhood, when 
life hangs heavy on their hands, that they might have 
a quieting draught out of Rip Yan Winkle's flagon, 

NOTE. 

The foregoing Tale, one would suspect, had been suggested to 
Mr. Knickerbocker by a little German superstition about the 
Emperor Frederick der Roihhart,^ and the Kjpphaiiser moun- 
tain ; the subjoined note, however, which he had appended to the 
tale, shows that it is an absolute fact, narrated with his usual 
fidelity. 

" The story of Rip Van Winkle may seem incredible to many, 
but nevertheless I give it my full belief, for I know the vicinity 
of our old Dutch settlements to have been very subject to mar- 
vellous events and appearances. Indeed, I have heard many 
stranger stories than this, in the villages along the Hudson ; all 
of which were too well authenticated to admit of a doubt. I have 
even talked with Rip Van Winkle myself, who, when last I saw 
him, was a very old venerable man, and so perfectly rational and 
consistent on every other point, that I think no conscientious 
person could refuse to take this into the bargain ; nay, I have 
seen a certificate on the subject taken before a country justice 
and signed with a cross, in the justice's own handwriting. The 
story therefore, is beyond the possibility of doubt. 

"D. K." 

POSTSCRIPT. 

The following are travelling notes from a memorandum-bool 
jf Mr. Knickerbocker : — 

The Kaatsberg, or Catskill Mountains, have always been a re 
gion full of fable. The Indians considered them the abode of 
spirits, who influenced the weather, spreading sunshine or clouds 

1 Frederick I. of Germany, 1121-1190, called Barbarossa, der 
Rothhart (Redbeard or Rufus), was fabled not to have died but 
to have gone into a long sleep, from which he would awake 
when Germany should need him. The same legend was told by 
ff»e Danes of their Holger. 



HIP VAN WINKLE. 31 

over the landscape, and sending good or bad hunting seasons. 
They were ruled by an old squaw spirit, said to be their mother. 
She dwelt on the highest peak of the Catskills, and had charge 
of the doors of day and night tc open and shut them at the 
proper hour. She hung up the new moons in the skies, and cut 
up the old ones into stars. In times of drought, if properly 
propitiated, she would spin light summer clouds out of cobwebs 
and morning dew, and send them off from the crest of the moun- 
tain, flake after flake, like flakes of carded cotton, to float in the 
air ; until, dissolved by the heat of the sun, they would fall in 
gentle showers, causing the grass to spring, the fruits to ripen, 
and the corn to grow an inch an hour. If displeased, however, 
she would brew up clouds black as ink, sitting in the midst of 
them like a bottle-bellied spider in the midst of its web ; and 
when these clouds broke, woe betide the valleys ! 

In old times, say the Indian traditions, there was a kind of 
Manitou or Spirit, who kept about the wildest recesses of the 
Catskill Mountains, and took a mischievous pleasure in wreaking 
all kinds of evils and vexations upon the red men. Sometimes 
he would assume the form of a bear, a panther, or a deer, lead 
the bewildered hunter a weary chase through tangled forest and 
among ragged rocks ; and then spring off with a loud ho ! ho ! 
leaving him aghast on the brink of a beetling precipice or raging 
torrent. 

The favorite abode of this Manitou is still shown. It is a 
great rock or cliff on the loneliest part of the mountains, and 
from the flowering vines which clamber about it, and the wild 
flowers which abound in its neighborhood, is known by the name 
of the Garden Rock. Near the foot of it is a small lake, the 
haunt of the solitary bittern, with water-snakes basking in the 
sun on the leaves of the pond-lilies which lie on the surface. 
This place was held in great awe by the Indians, insomuch that 
the boldest hunter would not pursue his game within its pre- 
cincts. Once upon a time, however, a hunter, who had lost his 
way, penetrated to the Garden Rock, where he beheld a number 
of gourds placed in the crotches of trees. One of these he seized 
and made off with it, but in the hurry of his retreat he let it 
fall among the rocks, when a great stream gushed forth, which 
washed him away and swept him down precipices, wJfciere he was 
dashed to pieces, and the stream made its way to the Hudson, 
and continues to flow to the present day ; being the identioaJ 
stream known by the name of the Kaaters-kill. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 

FOUND AMONG THE PAPERS OF THE LATE DIEDRICH 
KNICKERBOCKER. 

A pleasing land of drowsy head it was, 
Of dreams that wave before the half -shut eye ; 
And of gay castles in the clouds that pass. 
Forever flushing round a summer sky. 

Casile of Indolence.'^ 

In tbe bosom of one of tliose spacious coves which 
indent the eastern shore of the Hudson, at that broad 
expansion of the river denominated by the ancient 
Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee,^ and where they 
always prudently shortened sail and implored the pro- 
tection of St. Nicholas 3 when they crossed, there lies a 
small market town or rural port, which by some is 
called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and 

1 An exquisite poem by James Thomson, an English poet, 
who lived from 1700 to 1748. In it he describes a beautiful pal- 
ace with groves and lawns and flowery beds, where everything 
ministers to the ease and luxury of its lotus-eating inmates. He 
seems to have gathered his materials from Tasso, an Italian 
poet of the sixteenth century, and his inspiration from Spenser, 
an English poet of the same century and the author of The 
Faerie Queene. 

2 The " Mediterranean " of the river, as Irving was pleased to 
call it, about ten miles long and four wide. 

^ The patron saint of children, also of sailors. Tradition says 
that he was bishop of Myra in Lydia, and died in 326 A. D. He 
is revered by the young as the bearer of gifts on Christmas eve. 
The Dutch know him as Santa Claus (or Klaus). Irving alludes 
to him frequently in his humorous History of New York. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 33 

properly known by the name of Tarry Town. This 
name was given, we are tokl, in former days, by the 
good housewives of the adjacent country, from the 
inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about 
the village tavern on market days. Be that as it may, 
I do not vouch for the fact, but merely advert to it, 
for the sake of being precise and authentic. Not far 
from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a 
little valley or rather lap of land among high hills, 
which is one of the quietest places in the whole world. 
A small brook glides through it, with just murmur 
enough to lull one to repose ; and the occasional 
whistle of a quail or tapping of a woodpecker is 
almost the only sound that ever breaks in upon the 
uniform tranquillity. 

I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit 
in squirrel-shooting was in a grove of tall walnut-trees 
that shades one side of the valley. I had wandered 
into it at noontime, when all nature is peculiarly 
quiet, and was startled by the roar of my own gun, as 
it broke the Sabbath stillness around and was pro- 
longed and reverberated by the angry echoes. If ever 
I should wish for a retreat ^ whither I might steal 
from the world and its distractions, and dream quietly 
away the remnant of a troubled life, I know of none 
more promising than this little valley. 

From the listless repose of the place, and the pe- 
culiar character of its inhabitants, who are descend- 
ants from the original Dutch settlers, this sequestered 
glen has long been known by the name of Sleepy 

^ Irving subsequently bought the little stone cottage where 
the Van Tassels were said to have lived, enlarged and improved 
it, and gave it the name of Sunnyside. Here he spent his declia« 
Uig years, thus gratifying the wish implied in the text. 



34 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

Hollow, and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy 
Hollow Boys throughout all the neighboring country, 
A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over the 
land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say 
that the place was bewitched by a High German doc. 
tor, during the early days of the settlement ; others, 
that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of his 
tribe, held his powwows there before the country was 
discovered by Master Hendrick Hudson.^ Certain it 
is, the place still continues under the sway of some 
witching power, that holds a spell over the minds of 
the good people, causing them to walk in a continual 
reverie. They are given to all kinds of marvelous 
beliefs ; are subject to trances and visions, and fre- 
quently see strange sights, and hear music and voices 
in the air. The whole neighborhood abounds with 
local tales, haunted spots, and twilight superstitions ; 
stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across the valley 
than in any other part of the country, and the night- 
mare, with her whole ninefold,^ seems to make it the 
favorite scene of her gambols. 

The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this 
enchanted region, and seems to be commander-in-chief 
of all the powers of the air, is the apparition of a fig- 
ure on horseback, without a head. It is said by some 
to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had 
been carried away by a cannon-ball, in some nameless 
battle during the Revolutionary War, and who is ever 

^ More commonly known as Henry Hudson. He was an emi- 
nent English navigator, who, while seeking a northwest passage 
to India, discovered the river and the bay that bears his name, the 
former in 1609 and the latter in 1610, In 1611 a mutinous crew 
forced him and eight men into a small boat and abandoned them 
fee their fate. They were never heard of afterwards. 

* " He met the night-mare and her nine-fold." — King Lear, 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 35 

and anon seen by the country folk hurrying along in 
che gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind. 
His haunts are not confined to the valley, but extend 
at times to the adjacent roads, and especially to the 
vicinity of a church ^ at no great distance. Indeed, 
certain of the most authentic historians of those parts, 
who have been careful in collecting and collating the 
floating facts concerning this spectre, allege that the 
body of the trooper having been buried in the church^ 
yard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in 
nightly quest of his head, and that the rushing speed 
with which he sometimes passes along the Hollow, 
like a midnight blast, is owing to his being belated, 
and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before' 
daybreak. 

Such is the general purport of this legendary super* 
atition, which has furnished materials for many a wild 
story in that region of shadows; and the spectre is 
known at all the country firesides, by the name of the 
Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow. 

It is remarkable that the visionary .propensity I 
have mentioned is not confined to the native inhabi- 
tants of the valley, but is unconsciously imbibed by 
every one who resides there for a time. However wide 
awake they may have been before they entered that 
sleepy region, they are sure, in a little time, to inhale 
^he witching influence of the air, and begin to grow 
imaginative, to dream dreams, and see apparitions. 

I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud ; 
For it is in such little retired Dutch valleys, found 
here and there embosomed in the great State of New 
^ork, that population, manners, and customs remain 

1 This little Dutch church, which was built in 1699, is said to 
be still standing 



36 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

fixed, while the great torrent of migration and im. 
provement, which is making such incessant changes 
in other parts of this restless country, sweeps by them 
unobserved. They are like those little nooks of still 
water, which border a rapid stream, where we may see 
the straw and bubble riding quietly at anchor, or 
slowly revolving in their mimic harbor, undisturbed 
by the rush of the passing current. Though many 
years have elapsed since I trod the drowsy shades of 
Sleepy Hollow, yet I question whether I should not 
still find the same trees and the same families vege« 
tating in its sheltered bosom. 

In this by-place of nature there abode, in a remote 
period of American history, that is to say, some thirty 
years since, a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod 
Crane, who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, " tar- 
ried," in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing 
the children of the vicinity. He was a native of Con- 
necticut, a State which supplies the Union with pio- 
neers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends 
forth yearly its legions of frontier woodmen and coun- 
try schoolmasters. The cognomen of Crane was not 
inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceed- 
ingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, 
hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that 
might have served for shovels, and his whole frame 
most loosely hung together. His head was small, and 
flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, 
and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather- 
cock perched upon his spindle neck to tell which way 
the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile 
of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and 
fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for 
the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or 
§ome scarecrow eloped from a cornfield- 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 37 

His schoolhoiise was a low building of one large 
room, rudely constructed of logs ; the windows partly 
glazed, and partly patched with leaves of old copy- 
books. It was most ingeniously secured at vacant 
hours, by a withe twisted in the handle of the door, and 
stakes set against the window shutters ; so that though 
a thief might get in with perfect ease, he would find 
some embarrassment in getting out, — an idea most 
probably borrowed by the architect, Yost Van Hou- 
ten, from the myster}^ of an eelpot.^ The schoolhouse 
stood in a rather lonely but pleasant situation, just at 
the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running close 
by, and a formidable birch-tree growing at one end of 
it. From hence the low murmur of his pupils' voices, 
conning over their lessons, might be heard in a drowsy 
summer's day, like the hum of a beehive ; interrupted 
now and then by the authoritative voice of the master, 
in the tone of menace or command; or, peradventure, 
by the appalling sound of the birch, as he urged some 
tardy loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge. 
Truth to say, he was a conscientious man, and ever 
bore in mind the golden maxim, " Spare the rod and 
spoil the child." ^ Ichabod Crane's scholars certainly 
were not spoiled. 

I would not have it imagined, however, that he was 
one of those cruel potentates of the school who joy 
in the smart of their subjects ; on the contrary, he 
administered justice with discrimination rather than 

1 A trap for catcliing eels, its funnel-shaped aperture favoring 
their entrance but thwarting their escape. 

2 The thought, but not the wording, is from the Bible, as the 
following quotations show: — 

" He that spareth his rod hateth his son." — Prov. xiii. 24, 
" Love is a boy by poets styl'd ; 
Then spare the rod and &poil the child." — Butler's Hudibras. 



38 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

severity \ taking the burden off the backs of th€ 
weak, and laying it on those of the strong. Your 
mere puny stripling, that winced at the least flourish 
of the rod, was passed by with indulgence; but the 
claims of justice were satisfied by inflicting a double 
portion on some little tough, wrong-headed, broad- 
skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked and swelled and 
grew dogged and sullen beneath the birch. All this 
he called " doing his duty by their parents ; *' and he 
never inflicted a chastisement without following it by 
the assurance, so consolatory to the smarting urchin, 
that " he would remember it and thank him for it the 
longest day he had to live." 

When school hours were over, he was even the com- 
panion and playmate of the larger boys ; and on holi- 
day afternoons would convoy some of the smaller ones 
home, who happened to have pretty sisters, or good 
housewives for mothers, noted for the comforts of the 
cupboard. Indeed, it behooved him to keep on good 
terms with his pupils. The revenue arising from his 
school was small, and would have been scarcely suffi- 
cient to furnish him with daily bread, for he was a 
huge feeder, and, though lank, had the dilating power? 
of an anaconda ; but to help out his maintenance, he 
was, according to country custom in those parts, 
boarded and lodged at the houses of the farmers 
whose children he instructed. With these he lived 
successively a week at a time, thus going the rounds 
of the neighborhood, with all his worldly effects tied 
up in a cotton handkerchief. 

That all this might not be too onerous on the purses 
of his rustic patrons, who are apt to consider the costs 
of schooling a grievous burden, and schoolmasters as 
mere drones, he had various ways of rendering hini' 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 39 

self both useful and agreeable. He assisted tlie farm- 
ers occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms, 
helped to make hay, mended the fences, took the 
horses to water, drove the cows from pasture, and 
cut wood for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all 
the dominant dignity and absolute sway with which 
he lorded it in his little empire, the school, and be= 
came wonderfully gentle and ingratiating. He found 
favor in the eyes of the mothers by petting the chil- 
dren, particularly the youngest ; and like the lion 
bold, which whilom so magnanimously the lamb did 
hold,i he would sit with a child on one knee, and rock 
a cradle with his foot for whole hours together. 

In addition to his other vocations, he was the sing- 
ing-master of the neighborhood, and picked up many 
bright shillings by instructing the young folks ir 
psalmody. It was a matter of no little vanity to him 
on Sundays, to take his station in front of the church 
gallery, with a band of chosen singers ; where, in his 
own mind, he completely carried away the palm from 
the parson. Certain it is, his voice resounded far 
above all the rest of the congregation ; and there are 
peculiar quavers still to be heard in that church, and 
which may even be heard half a mile off, quite to 
the opposite side of the mill-pond, on a still Sunday 
morning, which are said to be legitimately descended 

1 In the New England Primer, almost the only juvenile book 
in the early schools of this country, occurs the following rude 
couplet : — 

" The Lion bold 
The Lamb doth hold." 

A coarse woodcut, representing a lion with his paw resting lov- 
ingly (!) on a lamb, accompanies the rhymes ; and the main 
object seems to be to impress indelibly on the learner's mind the 
tetter L. - 



40 WA SHING TON IR VING. 

from the nose of Ichabod Crane. Thus, by divers 
little makeshifts, in that ingenious way which is com- 
monly denominated "by hook and by crook," the 
worthy pedagogue got on tolerably enough, and was 
thought, by all who understood nothing of the labo 
of headwork, to have a wonderfully easy life of it. 

The schoolmaster is generally a man of some impor^ 
tance in the female circle of a rural neighborhood ; 
being considered a kind of idle, gentlemanlike person- 
age, of vastly superior taste and accomplishments to 
the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in 
learning only to the parson. His appearance, there- 
fore, is apt to occasion some little stir at the tea-table 
of a farmhouse, and the addition of a supernumerary 
dish of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the pa- 
rade of a silver teapot. Our man of letters, therefore., 
was peculiarly happy in the smiles of all the coun- 
try damsels. How he would figure among them in 
the churchyard, between services on Sundays I gather- 
ing grapes for them from the wild vines that overran 
the surrounding trees ; reciting for their amusement 
all the epitaphs on the tombstones; or sauntering, 
with a whole bevy of them, along the banks of the 
adjacent mill-pond ; while the more bashful country 
bumpkins hung sheepishly back, envying his superior 
elegance and address. 

From his half-itinerant life, also, he was a kipd o£ 
traveling gazette, carrying the whole budget of , ocal 
gossip from house to house, so that his appearance 
was always greeted with satisfaction. He was, more- 
over, esteemed by the women as a man of great erudi 
tion,for he had read several books quite through, and 
was a perfect master of Cotton Mather's ^ "History of 

1 Cotton Mather was a New England clergyman, son of 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 41 

New England Witchcraft," In which, by the way, he 
most firmly and potently believed. 

He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewd- 
ness and simple credulity. His appetite for the mar- 
velous, and his powers of digesting it, were equally 
extraordinary ; and both had been increased by his 
residence in this spell-bound region. No tale was toe 
gross or monstrous for his capacious swallow. It was 
often his delight, after his school was dismissed in the 
afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of clover 
bordering the little brook that whimpered by his 
school-house, and there con over old Mather's direful 
tales, until the gathering dusk of evening made the 
printed page a mere mist before his eyes. Then, as 
he wended his way by swamp and stream and awful 
woodland, to the farmhouse where he happened to be 
quartered, every sound of nature, at that witching 
hour, fluttered his excited imagination, — the moan of 
the whip-poor-will from the hillside, the boding cry 
of the tree toad, that harbinger of storm, the dreary 
hooting of the screech owl, to the sudden rustling in 
the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The 
fireflies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the dark- 
est places, now and then startled him, as one of 
uncommon brightness would stream across his path ; 
and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came 
winging his blundering flight against him, the poor 
varlet was ready to give up the ghost, with the idea 

Increase Mather and grandson of John Cotton. He was born in 
Boston in 1663, graduated at Harvard College in 1684, and 
ordained minister in Boston the same year. He was a diligent 
and prolific student, his various publications numbering nearly 
four hundred. Like most persons of his time, he believed in the 
existence of witches, and thought he was doing God's service ir. 
hunting them down. He died in 1728. 



42 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

that he was struck with a witch's token. His only 
resource on such occasions, either to drown thought 
or drive away evil spirits, was to sing psalm tunes ; 
and the good people of Sleepy Hollow, as they sat by 
their doors of an evening, were often filled with awe 
at hearing his nasal melody, "in linked sweetness 
long drawn out,"^ floating from the distant hill, or 
along the dusky road. 

Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was to 
pass long winter evenings with the old Dutch wives, as 
they sat spinning by the fire, with a row of apples 
roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and listen 
to their marvelous tales of ghosts and goblins, and 
haunted fields, and haunted brooks, and haunted 
bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly of the 
headless horseman, or Galloping Hessian of the Hol- 
low, as they sometimes called him. He would delight 
them equally by his anecdotes of witchcraft, and of 
the direful omens and portentous sights and sounds in 
the air, which prevailed in the earlier times of Con-, 
necticut ; and would frighten them woefully with spec- 
ulations upon comets and shooting stars ; and with the 
alarming fact that the world did absolutely tun* 
round, and that they were half the time topsy-turvy ! 

But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly 
cuddling in the chimney corner of a chamber that was 
all of a ruddy glow from the crackling wood fire, and 
where, of course, no spectre dared to show its face, it 
was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent 
walk homewards. What fearful shapes and shadows 
beset his path, amidst the dim and ghastly glare of 
a snowy night! With what wistful look did he eye 
every trembling ray of light streaming across the 
1 From Milton's U Allegro. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 43 

waste fields from some distant window ! How often 
was he appalled by some shrub covered with snow, 
which, like a sheeted spectre, beset his very path! 
How often did he shrink with curdling awe at the 
sound of his own steps on the frosty crust beneath his 
feet ; and dread to look over his shoulder, lest he 
should behold some uncouth being tramping close 
behind him ! and how often was he thrown into 
complete disQiay by some rushing blast, howling 
among the trees, in the idea that it was the Galloping- 
Hessian on one of his nightly scouriugs ! 

All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, 
phantoms of the mind that walk in darkness ; and 
though he had seen many spectres in his time, and 
been more than once beset by Satan ^ in divers shapes, 
in his lonely perambulations, yet daylight put an end 
to all these evils ; and he would have passed a pleas- 
ant life of it, in spite of the Devil and all his works, 
if his path had not been crossed by a being that 
causes more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, 
goblins, and the whole race of witches put together, 
and that was — a woman. 

Among the musical disciples who assembled, one 
evening in each week, to receive his instructions in 
psalmody, was Katrina Van Tassel, the daughter and 
only child of a substantial Dutch farmer. She was a 
blooming lass of fresh eighteen ; plump as a partridge ; 
ripe and melting and rosy-cheeked as one of her 
father's peaches, and universally famed, not merely for 
her beauty, but her vast expectations. She was withal 
a little of a coquette, as might be perceived even in 

1 An allusion to the old and widespread belief that ghosts, 
goblins, and witches were the obedi'ent subjects and emissaries 
of the Evil One. 



44 WASHINGTON IRVING, 

her dress, which was a mixture of ancient and modern 
fashions, as most suited to set off her charms. She 
wore the ornaments of pure yellow gold, which her 
great-great-grandmother had brought over from Saar- 
dam ; ^ the tempting stomacher of the olden time, and 
withal a provokingly short petticoat, to display the 
prettiest foot and ankle in the country round. 

Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart towards 
the sex; and it is not to be wondered at, that so 
tempting a morsel soon found favor in his eyes, more 
especially after he had visited her in her paternal 
mansion. Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect pic- 
ture of a thriving, contented, liberal-hearted farmer. 
He seldom, it is true, sent either his eyes or his 
thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm ; but 
within those everything was snug, happy and well-con- 
ditioned. He was satisfied with his wealth, but not 
proud of it; and piqued himself upon the hearty 
abundance, rather than the style in which he lived. 
His stronghold was situated on the banks of the Hud- 
son, in one of those green, sheltered,, fertile nooks in 
which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. A 
great elm tree spread its broad branches over it, at 
the foot of which bubbled up a spring of the softest 
and sweetest water, in a little well formed of a bar- 
rel; and then stole sparkling away through the grass, 
to a neighboring brook, that babbled along among 
alders and dwarf willows. Hard by the farmhouse 
was a vast barn, that might have served for a church ; 
every window and crevice of which seemed bursting 

^ Also known as Zaandam, a town of Holland about five miles 
from Amsterdam, historically famous as the place where Peter 
the Great of Russia worked as a shipwright and learned how 
to build sh^^ 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW, 45 

forth with the treasures of the farm ; the flail was 
busily resounding within it from morning to night ; 
swallows and martins skimmed twittering about the 
eaves ; and rows of pigeons, some with one eye turned 
up, as if watching the weather, some with their heads 
under their wings or buried in their bosoms, and 
others swelling, and cooing, and bowing about their 
dames, were enjoying the sunshine on the roof. Sleek 
unwieldy porkers were grunting in the repose and 
abundance of their pens, from whence sallied forth, 
now and then, troops of sucking pigs, as if to snulif 
the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese were rid- 
ing in an adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets of 
ducks; regiments of turkeys were gobbling through 
the farmyard, and Guinea fowls fretting about it, like 
ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish, discon- 
tented cry. Before the barn door strutted the gallant 
cock, that pattern of a husband, a warrior and a fine 
gentleman, clapping his burnished wings and crowing 
in the pride and gladness of his heart, — sometimes 
tearing up the earth with his feet, and then gener- 
ously calling his ever-hungry family of wives and chil- 
dren to enjoy the rich morsel which he had discov- 
ered. 

The pedagogue's mouth watered as he looked upon 
this sumptuous promise of luxurious winter fare. In 
his devouring mind's eye, he pictured to himself every 
roasting-pig running about with a pudding in his 
belly, and an apple in his mouth ; the pigeons were 
snugly put to bed in a comfortable pie, and tucked in 
with a coverlet of crust ; the geese were swimming in 
their own gravy; and the ducks pairing cosily in 
dishes, like snug married couples, with a decent com- 
petency of onion sauce. In the porkers he saw catved 



46 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

out the future sleek side of bacon, and juic}^ relishing 
ham ; not a turkey but he beheld daintily trussed up, 
with its gizzard under its wing, and, peradventure, a 
necklace of savory sausages ; and even bright chanti- 
cleer himself lay sprawling on his back, in a side dish, 
with uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which 
his chivalrous spirit disdained to ask while living. 

As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he 
rolled his great green eyes over the fat meadow lands^ 
the rich fields of wheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and 
Indian corn, and the orchards burdened with ruddy 
fruit, which surrounded the warm tenement of Van 
Tassel, his heart yearned after the damsel who was to 
inherit these domains, and his imagination expanded 
with the idea, how they might be readily turned into 
cash, and the money invested in immense tracts of 
wild land, and shingle palaces in the wilderness. 
Nay, his busy fancy already realized his hopes, and 
presented to him the blooming Katrina, with a whole 
family of children, mounted on the top of a wagon 
loaded with household trumpery, with pots and ket- 
tles dangling beneath ; and he beheld himself bestrid- 
ing a pacing mare, with a colt at her heels, setting 
out for Kentucky, Tennessee,^ — or the Lord knows 
where ! 

When he entered the house, the conquest of his 
heart was complete. It was one of those spacious 
farmhouses, with high-ridged but lowly sloping roofs, 
built in the style handed down from the first Dutch 
settlers ; the low projecting eaves forming a piazza 
along the front, capable of being closed up in bad 

1 At the time the Sketch Book, which contains the Legend of 
Sleepy Hollow, was published (1819), the far West that ami' 
grants made their goal was east of the Mississippi. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 47 

weather. Under this were hung flails, harness, vari- 
ous utensils of husbandry, and nets for fishing in the 
neighboring river. Benches were built along the side^ 
for summer use ; and a great spinning-wheel at ont 
end, and a churn at the other, showed the various uses 
to which this important porch might be devoted. 
From this piazza the wondering Ichabod entered the 
hall, which formed the centre of the mansion, and the 
place of usual residence. Here rows of resplendent 
pewter, ranged on a long dresser, dazzled his eyes. 
In one corner stood a huge bag of wool, ready to be 
spun; in another, a quantity of linsey-woolsey just 
from the loom ; ears of Indian corn, and strings of 
dried apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along 
the walls, mingled with the gaud of red peppers ; and 
a door left ajar gave him a peep into the best parlor, 
where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany 
tables shone like mirrors ; andirons, with their accom- 
panying shovel and tongs, glistened from their covert 
of asparagus tops ; mock-oranges and conch-shells 
decorated the mantelpiece ; strings of various-colored 
birds' eggs were suspended above it ; a great ostrich 
egg was hung from the centre of the room, and a cor^ 
ner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed immense 
treasures of old silver and well-mended china. 

From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these 
regions of delight, the peace of his mind was at an 
end, and his only study was how to gain the affections of 
the peerless daughter of Van Tassel. In this enterprise, 
however, he had more real difficulties than generally 
fell to the lot of a knight-errant of yore,^ who seldom 

1 A good type of the hero Irving had in mind may be found in 
Don Quixote, the wandering knight whom Spanish Cervantes im- 
mortalized in his inimitable Doji Quixote de la Mancha (1605). 



48 WASHINGTON IRVING, 

had anything but giants, enchanters, fiery dragons, 
and such like easily conquered adversaries, to contend 
with ; and had to make his way merely through gates 
of iron and brass, and walls of adamant to the castle 
keep, where the lady of his heart was confined ; all 
which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his 
way to the centre of a Christmas pie ; and then the 
lady gave him her hand as a matter of course. Icha- 
bod, on the contrary, had to win his way to the heart 
of a country coquette, beset with a labyrinth of whims 
and caprices, which were forever presenting new diffi- 
culties and impediments ; and he had to encounter a 
host of fearful adversaries of real flesh and blood, the 
numerous rustic admirers, who beset every portal to 
her heart, keeping a watchful and angry eye upon 
each other, but ready to fly out in the common cause 
against any new competitor. 

Among these, the niost formidable was a burly, 
roaring, roystering blade, of the name of Abraham, or, 
according to the Dutch abbreviation, Brom Van 
Brunt, the hero of the country round, which rang 
with his feats of strength and hardihood. He was 
broad-shouldered and double-jointed, with short curly 
black hair, and a bluff but not unpleasant counte- 
nance, having a mingled air of fun and arrogance 
From his Herculean frame and great powers of limb, 
he had received the nickname of Brom Bones, by 
which he was universally known. He was famed for 
great knowledge and skill in horsemanship, being as 
dexterous on horseback as a Tartar. He was foremost 
at all races and cock-fights; and, with the ascendancy 
which bodily strength always acquires in rustic life, 
was the umpire in all disputes, setting his hat on one 
side, and giving his decisions with an air and tone that 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 49 

admitted of no gainsay or appeal. He was always 
ready for either a fight or a frolic ; but had more mis- 
chief than ill-will in his composition ; and with all his 
overbearing roughness, there was a strong dash of 
waggish good humor at bottom. He had three or 
four boon companions, who regarded him as their 
model, and at the head of whom he scoured the coun- 
try, attending every scene of feud or merriment for 
miles round. In cold weather he was distinguished 
by a fur cap, surmounted with a flaunting fox's tail ; 
and when the folks at a country gathering descried 
this well-known crest at a distance, whisking about 
among a squad of hard riders, they always stood hy 
for a squall. Sometimes his crew would be heard 
dashing along past the farmhouses at midnight, with 
whoop and halloo, like a troop of Don Cossacks ; ^ and 
the old dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen 
for a moment till the hurry-scurry had clattered by, 
and then exclaim, " Ay, there goes Brom Bones and 
his gang ! " The neighbors looked upon him with a 
mixture of awe, admiration, and good-will ; and, when 
any madcap prank or rustic brawl occurred in the 
vicinity, always shook their heads, and warranted 
Brom Bones was at the bottom of it. 

This rantipole hero had for some time singled out 
the blooming Katrina for the object of his uncouth 
gallantries, and though his amorous toyings were 
something like the gentle caresses and endearments of 

1 The Cossacks are restless and warHke Russian tribes, of 
excellent service to the Russian army as scouts, skirmishers, and 
irregular cavalry. They are vi^idely distributed over the empire, 
and are popularly known by their localities as the Cossacks of the 
river Don, of the Danube, of the Black Sea, of the Caucasus, 
«jid so on. 



60 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

a bear, yet it was whispered that she did not alto« 
gether discourage his hopes. Certain it is, his ad- 
vances were signals for rival candidates to retire, who 
felt no inclination to cross a lion in his amours ; inso- 
much, that when his horse was seen tied to Van Tas- 
sel's paling, on a Sunday night, a sure sign that his 
master was courting, or, as it is termed, " sparking,*' 
within, all other suitors passed by in despair, and car= 
ried the war into other quarters. 

Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod 
Crane had to contend, and, considering all things, a 
stouter man than he would have shrunk from the 
competition, and a wiser man would have despaired. 
He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability and 
perseverance in his nature ; he was in form and spirit 
like a supple-jack — yielding, but tough ; though he 
bent, he never broke; and though he bowed beneath 
the slightest pressure, yet, the moment it was away — 
jerk ! — he was as erect, and carried his head as high 
as ever. 

To have taken the field openly against his rival 
would have been madness ; for he was not a man to 
be thwarted in his amours, any more than that stormy 
lover, Achilles.^ Ichabod, therefore, made his ad- 
vances in a quiet and gently insinuating manner. 
Under cover of his character of singing-master, he 
made frequent visits at the farmhouse ; not that he 
had anything to apprehend from the meddlesome inter- 
ference of parents, which is so often a stumbling-block 
in the path of lovers. Bait Van Tassel was an easy, 

^ The most famous warrior of the Trojan War. The Iliad of 
Homer begins with the wrath of Achilles, in the tenth year of 
the war, because Agamemnon had taken from him Briseis, a 
beautiful captive, to whom he was strongly attached. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW, 51 

indulgent soul ; he loved his daughter better even 
than his pipe, and, like a reasonable man and an 
excellent father, let her have her way in everything. 
His notable little wife, too, had enough to do to 
attend to her housekeeping and manage her poultry ; 
for, as she sagely observed, ducks and geese are fool» 
ish things, and must be looked after, but girls can 
take care of themselves. Thus, while the busy dame 
bustled about the house, or plied her spinning-wheel 
at one end of the piazza, honest Bait would sit smok- 
ing his evening pipe at the other, watching the 
achievements of a little wooden warrior, who, armed 
with a sword in each hand, was most valiantly fight- 
ing the wind on the pinnacle of the barn. In the 
mean time, Ichabod would carry on his suit with the 
daughter by the side of the spring under the great 
elm, or sauntering along in the twilight, that hour so 
favorable to the lover's eloquence. 

I profess not to know how women's hearts are 
wooed and won. To me they have always been mat- 
ters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to have 
but one vulnerable point, or door of access ; while 
others have a thousand avenues, and may be captured 
in a thousand different ways. It is a great triumph 
of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof 
of generalship to maintain possession of the latter, for 
a man must battle for his fortress at every door and 
window. He who wins a thousand common hearts is 
therefore entitled to some renown ; but he who keeps 
undisputed sway over the heart of a coquette is in- 
deed a hero. Certain it is, this was not the case with 
the redoubtable Brom Bones ; and from the moment 
Ichabod Crane made his advances, the interests of the 
former evidently declined : his horse was no longer 



62 WASHINGTON IRVING, 

seen tied to the palings on Sunday nights, and s 
deadly fend gradually arose between him and the pre- 
ceptor of Sleepy Hollow. 

Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in his 
nature, would fain have carried matters to open war- 
fare and have settled their pretensions to the lady, 
according to the mode of those most concise and sim- 
ple reasoners, the knights-errant of yore, — by single 
combat ; but Ichabod was too conscious of the supe- 
rior might of his adversary to enter the lists against 
him; he had overheard a boast of Bones, that he 
would " double the schoolmaster up, and lay him on a 
shelf of his own schoolhouse ; " and he was too wary 
to give him an opportunity. There was something 
extremely provoking in this obstinately pacific system ; 
it left Brom no alternative but to draw upon the 
funds of rustic waggery in his disposition, and to play 
off boorish practical jokes upon his rival. Ichabod be- 
came the object of whimsical persecution to Bones and 
bis gang of rough riders. They harried his hitherto 
peaceful domains, smoked out his singing-school by 
stopping up the chimney, broke into the schoolhouse 
at night, in spite of its formidable fastenings. of withe 
and window stakes, and turned everything topsy-turvy, 
so that the poor schoolmaster began to think all the 
witches in the country held their meetings there. But 
what was still more annoying, Brom took all opportu- 
nities of turning him into ridicule in presence of his 
distress, and had a scoundrel dog whom he taught to 
>vhine in the most ridiculous manner, and introduced 
\s a rival of Ichabod's, to instruct her in psalmody. 

In this way matters went on for some time, without 
producing any material effect on the relative situa« 
tions of the contending powers. On a fine autumnal 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 53 

ifternoon, Icliabod, in pensive mood, sat eutlironed on 
the lofty stool from whence he usually watched all the 
concerns of his little literary realm. In his hand 
he swayed a ferule, that sceptro of despotic power; 
the birch of justice reposed on three nails behind the 
throne, a constant terror to evil doers ; while on the 
desk before him might be seen sundry contraband 
articles and prohibited weapons, detected upon the 
persons of idle urchins, such as half-munched apples, 
popguns, whirligigs, fly-cages, and whole legions of 
rampant little paper game-cocks. Apparently there 
had been some appalling act of justice recently in- 
flicted, for his scholars were all busily intent upon 
their books, or slyly whispering behind them with one 
eye kept upon the master ; and a kind of buzzing still- 
ness reigned throughout the schoolroom. It was sud- 
denly interrupted by the appearance of a negro in 
tow-cloth jacket and trowsers, a round-crowned frag- 
ment of a hat, like the cap of Mercury, and mounted 
on the back of a ragged, wild, half -broken colt, which 
he managed with a rope by way of halter. He came 
clattering up to the school-door with an invitation to 
Ichabod to attend a merry-making or " quilting- 
frolic," ^ to be held that evening at Mynheer Van 
Tassel's ; and having delivered his message with that 
air of importance and effort at fine language which 
a negro is apt to display on petty embassies of the 
kind, he dashed over the brook, and was seen scam- 
pering away up the Hollow, full of the importance 
and hurry of his mission. 

1 "Now were histituted ' quilting-bees,' and * husking-bees,' 
and other rural assemblages, where, under the inspiring influx 
enee of the fiddle, toil was enlivened by gayety and followed up 
i)y thi; dance." — Irving's History of New York. 



64 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quist 
schoolroom. The scholars were hurried through their 
lessons without stopping at trifles ; those who were 
nimble skipped over half with impunity, and those 
who were tardy had a smart application now and then 
in the rear, to quicken their speed or help them over 
a tall word. Books were flung aside without being 
put away on the shelves, inkstands were overturned, 
benches thrown down, and the whole school was 
turned loose an hour before the usual time, bursting 
forth like a legion of young imps, yelping and racket- 
ing about the green in joy at their early emancipation. 

The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra 
half hour at his toilet, brushing and furbishing up his 
best, and indeed only suit of rusty black, and arran- 
ging his locks by a bit of broken looking-glass that 
hung up in the schoolhouse. That he might make his 
appearance before his mistress in the true style of a 
cavalier, he borrowed a horse from the farmer with 
whom he was domiciliated, a choleric old Dutchman 
of the name of Hans Van Ripper, and, thus gallantly 
mounted, issued forth like a knight-errant in quest 
cf adventures. But it is meet I should, in the true 
spirit of romantic story, give some account of the 
looks and equipments of my hero and his steed. The 
animal he bestrode was a broken-down plow-horse, 
that had outlived almost everything but its vicious- 
ness. He was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe neck, 
and a head like a hammer ; his rusty mane and tail 
were tangled and knotted with burs ; one eye had lost 
its pupil, and was glaring and spectral, but the other 
had the gleam of a genuine devil in it. Still he must 
have had fire and mettle in his day, if we may judge 
from the name he bore of Gunpowder. He had, Id 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW, 55 

fact, been a favorite steed of liis master's, the choleric 
Van Ripper, who was a furious rider, and had infused, 
ver}^ probably, some of his own spirit into the ani- 
mal; for, old and broken-down as he looked, there 
was more of the lurking devil in him than in any 
young filly in the country. 

Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. He 
rode with short stirrups, which brought his knees 
nearly up to the pommel of the saddle ; his sharp 
elbows stuck out like grasshoppers' ; he carried his 
whip perpendicularly in his hand, like a sceptre, and 
as his horse jogged on, the motion of his arms was 
not unlike the flapping of a pair of wings. A small 
wool hat rested on the top of his nose, for so his 
scanty strip of forehead might be called, and the 
skirts of his black coat fluttered out almost to the 
horse's tail. Such was the appearance of Ichabod 
and his steed as they shambled out of the gate of 
Hans Van Ripper, and it was altogether such an 
apparition as is seldom to be met with in broad day- 
light. 

It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day ; the sky 
was clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and 
golden livery which we always associate with the idea of 
abundance. The forests had put on their sober brown 
and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had 
been nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, 
purple, and scarlet. Streaming files of wild ducks 
began to make their appearance high in the air ; the 
bark of the squirrel might be heard from the groves of 
beech and hickory-nuts, and the pensive whistle of the 
quail at intervals from the neighboring stubble field. 

The small birds were taking their farewell ban- 
quets. In the fullness of their revelry, they fluttered, 



56 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

chirping and frolicking from bush to bush, and tree 
to tree, capricious from the very profusion and variety 
around them. There was the honest cockrobin, the 
favorite game of stripling sportsmen, with its loud 
querulous note ; and the twittering blackbirds flying in 
sable clouds ; and the golden-winged woodpecker, 
with his crimson crest, his broad black gorget, and 
splendid plumage; and the cedar-bird, with its red- 
tipt wings ajid yellow-tipt tail and its little monteiro^ 
cap of feathers ; ajid the blue jay, that noisy coxcomb, 
in his gay light blue coat and white underclothes, 
screaming and chattering, nodding and bobbing a-nd 
bowing, and pretending to be on good terms with 
every songster of the grove. 

As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye, ever 
open to every symptom of culinary abundance, ranged 
with delight over the treasures of jolly autumn. On 
all sides he beheld vast store of apples : some hanging 
in oppressive opulence on the trees ; some gathered 
into baskets and barrels for the market ; others 
heaped up in rich piles for the cider-press. Farther 
on he beheld great fields of Indian corn, with its 
golden ears peeping from their leafy coverts, and 
holding out the promise of cakes and hasty-pudding; 
and the yellow pumpkins lying beneath them, turning 
up their fair round bellies to the sun, and giving 
ample prospects of the most luxurious of pies ; and 
anon he passed the fragrant buckwheat fields breath- 
ing the odor of the beehive, and as he beheld them, soft 
anticipations stole over his mind of dainty slap-jacks, 

1 Same as montero (mon-ta'-ro), a horseman's or huntsman's 
cap, having a round crown with flaps which could be drawn 
down over the sides of the face. 

" His hat was like a helmet or Spanish montero." — Bacon. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 57 

well buttered, and garnished with honey or treacle, by 
the delicate little dimpled hand of Katrina Van Tas- 
sel. 

Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts 
and " sugared suppositions," he journeyed along the 
sides of a range of hills which look out upon some 
of the goodliest scenes of the mighty Hudson. The 
sun gradually wheeled his broad disk down in the 
west. The wide bosom of the Tappan Zee lay mo- 
tionless and glassy, excepting that here and there a 
gentle undulation waved and prolonged the blue 
shadow of the distant mountain. A few amber clouds 
floated in the sky, without a breath of air to move 
them. The horizon was of a fine golden tint, chan- 
ging gradually into a pure apple green, and from that 
into the deep blue of the mid-heaven. A slanting ray 
lingered on the woody crests of the precipices that 
overhung some parts of the river, giving greater 
depth to the dark gray and purple of their rocky 
8ides. A sloop was loitering in the distance, dropping 
slowly down with the tide, her sail hanging uselessly 
against the mast ; and as the reflection of the sky 
gleamed along the still water, it seemed as if the ves- 
sel was suspended in the air. 

It was toward evening that Ichabod arrived at the 
castle of the Heer Van Tassel, which he found thronged 
with the pride and flower of the adjacent country. 
Old farmers, a spare leathern-faced race, in homespun 
coats and breeches, blue stockings, huge shoes, and 
magnificent pewter buckles. Their brisk, withered 
little dames, in close crimped caps, long-waisted short- 
gowns, homespun petticoats, with scissors and pin-cush- 
ions, and gay calico pockets hanging on the outside. 
Buxom lasses, almost as antiquated as their mothers. 



68 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

excepting where a straw bat, a fine ribbon, or perhaps 
a white frock, gave symptoms of city innovation. The 
sons, in short square-skirted coats, with rows of stu- 
pendous brass buttons, and their hair generally queued 
in the fashion of the times, especially if they could 
procure an eelskin for the purpose, it being esteemed 
I;hroughout the country as a potent nourisher and 
^tr^ngthener of the hair. 

Bfom Bones, however, was the hero of the scene, 
leaving come to the gathering on his favorite steed 
Daredevil, a creature, like himself, full of mettle and 
mischief, and which no one but himself could manage. 
He was, in fact, noted for preferring vicious animals, 
given to all kinds of tricks which kept the rider in 
constant risk of his neck, for he held a tractable, well- 
broken horse as unworthy of a lad of spirit. 

Fain would I pause to dwell upon the world of 
charms that burst upon the enraptured gaze of my 
hero, as he entered the state parlor of Van Tassel's 
mansion. Not those of the bevy of buxom lasses, with 
their luxurious display of red and white ; but the 
ample charms of a genuine Dutch country tea-table, 
in the sumptuous time of autumn. Such heaped-up 
platters of cakes of various and almost indescribable 
kinds, known only to experienced Dutch housewives ! 
There was the doughty doughnut, the tender oly- 
koek,^ and the crisp and crumbling cruller,' sweet 
cakes and short cakes, ginger cakes and honey cakes, 
and the whole family of cakes. And then there were 
apple pies, and peach pies, and pumpkin pies ; besides 
slices of ham and smoked beef ; and moreover delec- 

1 Pronounced o'-li-cook, from a Dutch word that means o^7- 
eake. A cake of dough sweetened and fried in lard, — some 
thing like the cruller, but richer and tenderer. 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 59 

table dishes of preserved plums, and peaches, and 
pears, and quinces ; not to mention broiled shad and 
roasted chickens ; together with bowls of milk and 
cream, all mingled higgledy-piggledy, pretty much as 
I have enumerated them, with the motherly teapot 
sending up its clouds of vapor from the midst — Hea- 
ven bless the mark! I want breath and time to dis 
cuss this banquet as it deserves, and am too eager to 
get on with my story. Happily, Ichabod Crane was 
not in so great a hurry as his historian, but did ample 
justice to every dainty. 

He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart 
dilated in proportion as his skin was filled with good 
cheer, and whose spirits rose with eating, as some 
men's do with drink. He could not help, too, rolling 
his large eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with 
the possibility that he might one day be lord of all 
ttiis scene of almost unimaginable luxury and splen- 
dor. Then, he thought, how soon he'd turn his back 
upon the old school-house ; snap his fingers in the 
face of Hans Van Ripper, and every other niggardly 
patron, and kick any itinerant pedagogue out of doors 
that should dare to call him comrade ! 

Old Baltus Van Tassel moved about among his 
guests with a face dilated with content and good- 
humor, round and jolly as the harvest moon„ His 
hospitable attentions were brief, but expressive, being 
confined to a shake of the hand, a slap on the shoul- 
der, a loud laugh, and a pressing invitation to " fall 
to, and help themselves." 

And now the sound of the music from the common 
room, or hall, summoned to the dance. The musician 
was an old gray-headed negro, who had been the itir- 
erant orchestra of the neighborhood for more than 



60 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

half a century. His instrument was as old and bat* 
tered as himself. The greater part of the time lie 
scraped on two or three strings, accompanying every 
movement of the bow with a motion of the head ; bow- 
ing almost to the ground, and stamping with his foot 
whenever a fresh couple were to start. 

Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as much 
as upon his vocal powers. Not a limb, not a fibre 
about him was idle ; and to have seen his loosely hung 
frame in full motion, and clattering about the room, 
you would have thought St. Vitus himself, that 
blessed patron of the dance, was figuring before you 
in person. He was the admiration of all the negroes ; 
who, having gathered, of all ages and sizes, from the 
farm and the neighborhood, stood forming a pyramid 
of shining black faces at every door and window; 
gazing with delight at the scene ; rolling their white 
eye-balls, and showing grinning rows of ivory from 
ear to ear. How could the flogger of urchins be 
otherwise than animated and joyous ? the lady of his 
heart was his partner in the dance, and smiling gra- 
ciously in reply to all his amorous oglings; while 
Brom Bones, sorely smitten with love and jealousy, 
sat brooding by himself in one corner. 

When the dance was at an end, Ichabod was at- 
tracted to a knot of the sager folks, who, with Old Van 
Tassel, sat smoking at one end of the piazza, gossip= 
ing over former times, and drawing out long stories 
about the war. 

This neighborhood, at the time of which I am 
speaking, was one of those highly favored places 
which abound with chronicle and great men. The 
British and American line had run near it during the 
war ; it had, therefore, been the scene of marauding, 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 61 

and infested with refugees, cow-boys, and all kinds of 
border chivalry. Just sufficient time had elapsed to 
enable each story-teller to dress up his tale with a lit- 
tle becoming fiction, and, in the indistinctness of his 
recollection, to make himself the hero of every ex- 
ploit. 

There was the story of Doffue Martling, a large 
blue-bearded Dutchman, who had nearly taken a 
British frigate with an old iron nine-pounder from a 
mud breastwork, only that his gun burst at the sixth 
discharge. And there was an old gentleman who 
shall be nameless, being too rich a mynheer ^ to be 
lightly mentioned, who, in the battle of White Plains, 
being an excellent master of defence, parried a mus- 
ket-ball with a small-sword, insomuch that he abso- 
lutely felt it whiz round the blade, and glance off at 
the hilt ; in proof of which he was ready at any time 
to show the sword, with the hilt a little bent. There 
were several more that had been equally great in the 
field, not one of whom but was persuaded that he had 
a considerable hand in bringing the war to a happy 
termination. 

But all these were nothing to the tales of ghosts 
and apparitions that succeeded. The neighborhood is 
rich in legendary treasures of the kind. Local tales 
and superstitions thrive best in these sheltered, long 
settled retreats ; but are trampled under foot by the 
shifting throng that forms the population of most of 
our country places. Besides, there is no encourage- 
ment for ghosts in most of our villages, for they have 
scarcely had time to finish their first nap and turn 

^ Pronounced min-har'. Literally, my lord. It is the ordi- 
ixary title of address among Dutchmen, corresponding to sir or 
Mr. in English use. Hence, a Dutchman. 



62 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

themselves in their graves, before their surviving 
friends have travelled away from the neighborhood ; 
so that when they turn out at night to walk their 
rounds, they have no acquaintance left to call upon. 
This is perhaps the reason why we so seldom hear of 
ghosts except in our long-established Dutch communis 
ties. 

The immediate cause, however, of the prevalence of 
supernatural stories in these parts, was doubtless 
owing to the vicinity of Sleepy Hollow. There was a 
contagion in the very air that blew from that haunted 
region ; it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams 
and fancies infecting all the land. Several of the 
Sleepy Hollow people were present at Van Tassel's, 
and, as usual, were doling out their wild and wonder- 
ful legends. Many dismal tales were told about fune- 
ral trains, and mourning cries and wailings heard and 
seen about the great tree where the unfortunate Major 
Andre was taken, and which stood in the neighbor- 
hood. Some mention was made also of the woman in 
white, that haunted the dark glen at Raven Rock, and 
was often heard to shriek on winter nights before a 
storm, having perished there in the snow. The chief 
part of the stories, however, turned upon the favorite 
spectre of Slee23y Hollow, the Headless Horseman, 
who had been heard several times of late, patrolling 
the country; and, it was said, tethered his horse 
nightly among the graves in the churchyard. 

The sequestered situation of this church seems 
always to have made it a favorite haunt of troubled 
spirits. It stands on a knoll, surrounded by locust- 
trees and lofty elms, from among w^hicli its decent 
whitewashed walls shine modestly forth, like Christian 
ourity beaming through the shades of retirementc A 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEJ^Y HOLLOW. 63 

gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet of 
water, bordered by high trees, between which, peeps 
may be caught at the blue hills of the Hudson. To 
look upon its grass-grown yard, where the sunbeams 
seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at 
least the dead might rest in peace. On one side of 
the church extends a wide woody dell, along which 
raves a large brook among broken rocks and trunks 
of fallen trees. Over a deep black part of the 
stream, not far from the church, was formerly thrown 
a wooden bridge ; the road that led to it, and the 
bridge itself, were thickly shaded by overhanging 
trees, which cast a gloom about it, even in the day- 
time ; but occasioned a fearful darkness at night. 
Such. was one of the favorite haunts of the Headless 
Horseman, and the place where he was most frequently 
encountered. The tale was told of old Brouwer, a 
most heretical disbeliever in ghosts, how he met the 
Horseman returning from his foray into Sleepy Hol- 
low, and was obliged to get up behind him ; how they 
galloped over bush and brake, over hill and swamp, 
until they reached the bridge ; when the Horseman 
suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw old Brouwer 
into the brook, and sprang away over the tree-tops 
with a clap of thunder. 

This story was immediately matched by a thrice 
marvellous adventure of Brom Bones, who made lioht 
of the Galloping Hessian as an arrant jockey. He 
affirmed that on returning one night from the neigh- 
boring village of Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by 
this midnight trooper ; that he had offered to race 
with him for a bowl of punch, and should have won it 
too, for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but 
just as they came to the church bridge, the Hessian 
bolted, and vanished in a flash of fire. 



64 WASHINGTON IRVING, 

All these tales, told in that drowsy undertone with 
which men talk in the dark, the countenances of the 
listeners only now and then receiving a casual gleam 
from the glare of a pipe, sank deep in the mind of 
Ichabod. He repaid them in kind with large extracts 
from his invaluable author, Cotton Mather, and 
added many marvellous events that had taken place 
in his native State of Connecticut, and fearful sights 
which he had seen in his nightly walks about Sleepy 
Hollow. 

The revel now gradually broke up. The old farm- 
ers gathered together their families in their wagons, 
and were heard for some time rattling along the hol- 
low roads, and over the distant hills. Some of the 
damsels mounted on pillions behind their favorite 
swains, and their light-hearted laughter, mingling 
with the clatter of hoofs, echoed along the silent 
woodlands, sounding fainter and fainter, until they 
gradually died away, — and the late scene of noise and 
frolic was all silent and deserted. Ichabod only lin- 
gered behind, according to the custom of country lov- 
ers, to have a tete-a-tete with the heiress ; fully con- 
vinced that he was now on the high road to success. 
What passed at this interview I will not pretend to 
say, for in fact I do not know. Something, however^ 
I fear me, must have gone wrong, for he certainly 
sallied forth, after no very great interval, with an air 
quite desolate and chapfallen. Oh, these women ! 
these women ! Could that girl have been playing off 
any of her coquettish tricks? Was her encourage- 
ment of the poor pedagogue all a mere sham to secure 
her conquest of his rival? Heaven only knows, not 
I ! Let it suffice to say, Ichabod stole forth with the 
air of one who had been sacking a henroost, rather 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 65 

than a fair lady's heart. Without looking to the 
right or left to notice the scene of rural wealth, on 
which he had so often gloated, he went straight to the 
stable, and with several hearty cuffs and kicks roused 
his steed most uncourteously from the comfortable 
quarters in which he was soundly sleeping, dreaming 
of mountains of corn and oats, and whole valleys of 
timothy and clover. 

It was the very witching time of night ^ that Icha- 
bod, heavy-hearted and crest-fallen, pursued his travels 
homewards, along the sides of the lofty hills which 
rise above Tarry Town, and which he had traversed 
so cheerily in the afternoon. The hour was as disniai 
as himself. Far below him the Tappan Zee sprea ^. 
its dusky and indistinct waste of waters, with heri 
and there the tall mast of a sloop, riding quietly at 
anchor under the land. In the dead hush of mid- 
night, he could even hear the barking of the watch- 
dog from the opposite shore of the Hudson ; but it 
was so vague and faint as only to give an idea of his 
distance from this faithful companion of man. Now 
and then, too, the long-drawn crowing of a cock, acci- 
dentally awakened, would sound far, far off, from some 
farmhouse away among the hills — but it was like a 
dreaming sound in his ear. No signs of life occurred 
near him, but occasionally the melancholy chirp of a 
cricket, or perhaps the guttural twang of a bull-frog 
from a neighboring marsh, as if sleeping uncomfor- 
tably and turning suddenly in his bed. 

All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had 
heard in the afternoon now came crowding upon his 
recollection. The night grew darker and darker ; the 

* *' 'T is now the very witching time of night 
When churchyards yawn." — Hamlet. 



66 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving 
clouds occasionally hid them from his sight. He had 
never felt so lonely and dismal. He was, moreover, 
approaching the very place where many of the scenes 
of the ghost stories had been laid. In the centre of 
the road stood an enormous tulip-tree, which towered 
like a giant above all the other trees of the neighbor- 
hood, and formed a kind of landmark. Its limbs were 
gnarled and fantastic, large enough to form trunks 
for ordinary trees, twisting down almost to the earth, 
and rising again into the air. It was connected with 
the tragical story of the unfortunate Andr^, who had 
been taken prisoner hard by ; and was universally 
known by the name of Major Andre's tree. The 
common people regarded it with a mixture of respect 
and superstition, partly out of sympathy for the fate 
of its ill-starred namesake, and partly from the tales 
of strange sights, and doleful lamentations, told con- 
cerning it. 

As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began 
to whistle; he thought his whistle was answered; it 
was but a blast sweeping sharply through the dry 
branches. As he approached a little nearer, he 
thought he saw something white, hanging in the midst 
of the tree : he paused, and ceased whistling ; but, on 
looking more narrowly, perceived that it was a place 
where the tree had been scathed by lightning, and the 
white wood laid bare. Suddenly he heard a groan — ■ 
his teeth chattered, and his knees smote against the 
saddle : it was but the rubbing of one huge bough 
upon another, as they were swayed about by the 
breeze. He passed the tree in safety, but new perils 
lay before him. 

About two hundred yards from the tree, a small 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 67 

brook crossed the road, and ran into a marshy and 
thickly-wooded glen, known by the name of Wiley's 
Swamp. A few rough logs, laid side by side, served 
for a bridg^e over this stream. On that side of the 
road where the brook entered the wood, a group of 
oaks and chestnuts, matted thick with wild grape-vines, 
threw a cavernous gloom over it. To pass this bridge 
was the severest trial. It was at this identical spot 
that the unfortunate Andre was captured, and under 
the covert of those chestnuts and vines were the 
sturdy yeomen concealed who surprised him. This 
has ever since been considered a haunted stream, and 
fearful are the feelings of the school-boy who has to 
pass it alone after dark. 

As he approached the stream his heart began to 
thump ; he summoned up, however, all his resolution, 
gave his horse half a score of kicks in the ribs, and 
attempted to dash briskly across the bridge ; but 
instead of starting forward, the perverse old animal 
made a lateral movement, and ran broadside against 
the fence. Ichabod, whose fears increased with the 
delay, jerked the reins on the other side, and kicked 
lustily with the contrary foot : it was all in vain ; his 
steed started, it is true, but it was only to plunge to 
the opposite side of the road into a thicket of bram- 
bles and alder-bushes. The schoolmaster now be- 
stowed both whip and heel upon the starveling ribs of 
old Gunpowder, who dashed forward, snuffling and 
snorting, but came to a stand just by the bridge, with 
a suddenness that had nearly sent his rider sprawling 
over his head. Just at this moment a plashy tramp by 
the side of the bridge caught the sensitive ear of Icha- 
bod. In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin 
of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen, 



68 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

and towering. It stirred not, but seemed gathered up 
in the gloom, like some gigantic monster ready to 
spring upon the traveller. 

The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his 
head with terror. W hat was to be done ? To turn 
md fly was now too late ; and besides, what chance 
ivas there of escaping ghost or goblin, if such it was. 
which could ride upon the wings of the wind ? Sum- 
moning up, therefore, a show of courage, he demanded 
in stammering accents, "Who are you?" He re- 
ceived no reply. He repeated his demand in a still 
more agitated voice. Still there was no answer. 
Once more he cudgelled the sides of the inflexible 
Gunpowder, and, shutting his eyes, broke forth with 
involuntary fervor into a psalm tune. Just then the 
shadowy object of alarm put itself in motion, and with 
a scramble and a bound stood at once in the middle 
of the road. Though the night was dark and dismal, 
yet the form of the unknown might now in some 
degree be ascertained. He appeared to be a horse- 
man of large dimensions, and mounted on a black 
borse of powerful frame. He made no offer of moles- 
tation or sociability, but kept aloof on one side of the 
road, jogging along on the blind side of old Grun- 
powder, who had now got over his fright and way= 
wardness. 

Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange mid- 
night comjDanion, and bethought himself of the adven- 
ture of Brom Bones with the Galloping Hessian, now 
quickened his steed in hopes of leaving him behind. 
The stranger, however, quickened his horse to an 
equal pace. Ichabod pulled up, and fell into a walk, 
thinking to lag behind, — the other did the same. His 
heart began to sink within him ; he endeavored to 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 69 

resume his psalm tune, but his parched tongue clove 
to the roof of his mouth, and he could not utter a 
stave. There was something- in the moody and 
dogged silence of this pertinacious companion that 
was mysterious and appalling. It was soon fearfully 
accounted for. On mounting a rising ground, which 
brought the figure of his fellow-traveller in relief 
against the sky, gigantic in height, and muffled in a 
cloak, Ichabod was horror-struck on perceiving that 
he was headless ! but his horror was still more in- 
creased on observing that the head, which should 
have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him 
on the pommel of his saddle ! His terror rose to des- 
peration ; he rained a shower of kicks and blows upon 
Gunpowder, hoping by a sudden movement to give 
his companion the slip ; but the spectre started full 
jump with him. Away, then, they dashed through 
thick and thin ; stones flying and sparks flashing at 
every bound. Ichabod's flimsy garments fluttered in 
the air, as he stretched his long lank body away over 
his horse's head, in the eagerness of his flight. 

They had now reached the road which turns off to 
Sleepy Hollow; but Gunpowder, who seemed pos- 
sessed with a demon, instead of keeping up it, made 
an opposite turn, and plunged headlong down hill to 
the left. This road leads through a sandy hollow, 
shaded by trees for about a quarter of a mile, where 
it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story ; and just 
beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the 
whitewashed church. 

As yet the panic of the steed had given his un 
skilful rider an apparent advantage in the chase ; but 
just as he had got half way through the hollow, the 
girths of the saddle gave way, and he felt it slipping 



70 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

from under him. He seized it by the pommel, and 
endeavored to hold it firm, but in vain ; and had just 
time to save himself by clasping old Gunpowder 
round the neck, when the saddle fell to the earth, and 
he heard it trampled under foot by his pursuer. For 
a moment the terror of Hans Van Ripper's wrath 
passed across his mind, — for it was his Sunday sad- 
dle ; but this was no time for petty fears ; the goblin 
was hard on his haunches ; and (unskilful rider that 
he was !) he had much ado to maintain his seat ; some- 
times slipping on one side, sometimes on another, and 
sometimes jolted on the high ridge of his horse's back- 
bone, with a violence that he verily feared would 
cleave him asunder. 

An opening in the trees now cheered him with the 
hopes that the church bridge was at hand. The 
wavering reflection of a silver star in the bosom 
of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. 
He saw the walls of the church dimly glaring under 
the trees beyond. He recollected the place where 
Brom Bones' ghostly competitor had disappeared. 
"If I can but reach that bridge," ^ thought Ichabod, 
"I am safe." Just then he heard the black steed 
panting and blowing close behind him ; he even fan- 
cied that he felt his hot breath. Another convulsive 
kick in the ribs, and old Gunpowder sprang upon the 
bridge ; he thundered over the resounding planks ; he 

^ It was a superstitious belief that witches could uot cross the 
middle of a stream. In Burns's tale of Tam O^Shanter the hero 
is represented as urging his horse to gain the keystone of the 
bridge so as to escape the hotly pursuing witches : — 

" Now, do thy speedy utmost, Meg, 
And win the keystane of the brig : 
There at them thou thy tail may toss, — 
A running stream they dare not cross I " 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 71 

gained the opposite side ; and now Icliabod cast a look 
behind to see if his pursuer should vanish, according 
to rule, in a flash of fire and brimstone. Just then 
he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups, and in the 
very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeav- 
ored to dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It 
encountered his cranium with a tremendous crash, — 
he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gun- 
powder, the black steed, and the goblin rider, passed 
by like a whirlwind. 

The next morning the old horse was found without 
his saddle, and with the bridle under his feet, soberly 
cropping the grass at his master's gate. Ichabod did 
not make his appearance at breakfast ; dinner-hour 
came, but no Ichabod. The boys assembled at the 
schoolhouse, and strolled idly about the banks of the 
brook ; but no schoolmaster. Hans Van Ripper now 
began to feel some uneasiness about the fate of poor 
Ichabod, and his saddle. An inquiry was set on foot, 
and after diligent investigation they came upon his 
traces. In one part of the road leading to the 
church was found the saddle trampled in the dirt; 
the tracks of horses' hoofs deeply dented in the road, 
and evidently at furious speed, were traced to the 
bridge, beyond which, on the bank of a broad part of 
the brook, where the water ran deep and black, was 
found the hat of the unfortunate Ichabod, and close 
beside it a shattered pumpkin. 

The brook was searched, but the body of the schoob 
master was not to be discovered. Hans Van Ripper, 
as executor of his estate, examined the bundle which 
contained all his worldly effects. They consisted of 
two shirts and a half ; two stocks for the neck ; a paii* 
or two of worsted stockings ; an old pair of corduroy 



72 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

small-clotlies ; a rusty razor ; a book of psalm tunes 
ful of dog's-ears ; and a broken pitch-pipe. As tc 
the books and furniture of the schoolhouse, they be- 
longed to the community, excepting Cotton Mather's 
History of Witchcraft, a New England Almanac, and 
a book of dreams and fortune-telling ; in which last 
was a sheet of foolscap much scribbled and blotted in 
several fruitless attempts to make a copy of verses in 
honor of the heiress of Van Tassel. These magic 
books and the poetic scrawl were forthwith consigned 
to the flames by Hans Van Ripper ; who, from that 
time forward, determined to send his children no more 
to school ; observing that he never knew any good 
come of this same reading and writing. Whatever 
money the schoolmaster possessed, and he had received 
his quarter's pay but a day or two before, he must have 
had about his person at the time of his disappearance. 

The mysterious event caused much speculation at 
the church on the following Sunday. Knots of gazers 
and gossips were collected in the churchyard, at the 
bridge, and at the spot where the hat and pumpkin 
had been found. The stories of Brouwer, of Bones, 
and a whole budget of others were called to mind ; 
and when they had diligently considered them all, and 
compared them with the symptoms of the present case, 
they shook their heads, and came to the conclusion 
that Ichabod had been carried off by the Galloping 
Hessian. As he was a bachelor, and in nobody's 
debt, nobody troubled his. head any more about him ; 
the school was removed to a different quarter of the 
Hollow, and another pedagogue reigned in his stead. 

It is true, an old farmer, who had been down to 
New York on a visit several years after, and from 
whom this account of the ghostly adventure was re- 



THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 7S 

ceived, brought home the intelligence that Ichabod 
Crane was still alive ; that he had left the neighbor- 
hood partly through fear of the goblin and Hans Van 
Ripper, and partly in mortification at having been sud- 
denly dismissed by the heiress ; that he had changed 
his quarters to a distant part of the country ; had 
kept school and studied law at the same time ; had 
been admitted to the bar ; turned politician ; election- 
aered ; written for the newspapers ; and finally had 
been made a justice of the ten pound court.^ Brom 
Bones, too, who, shortly after his rival's disappear- 
ance conducted the blooming Katrina in triumph to 
the altar, was observed to look exceedingly knowing 
whenever the story of Ichabod was related, and always 
burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of the pump- 
kin ; which led some to suspect that he knew more 
about the matter than he chose to tell. 

The old country wives, however, who are the best 
judges of these matters, maintain to this day that 
Ichabod was spirited away by supernatural means; 
and it is a favorite story often told about the neigh- 
borhood round the winter evening fire. The bridge 
became more than ever an object of superstitious awe; 
and that may be the reason why the road has been 
altered of late years, so as to approach the church by 
the border of the mill-pond. The schoolhouse being 
deserted soon fell to decay, and was reported to be 
haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue; 
and the plough-boy, loitering homeward of a still sum= 
raer evening, has often fancied his voice at a distance, 
chanting a melancholy psalm tune among the tranquil 
solitudes of Sleepy Hollow. 

1 A coiirt of justice authorized to deal with cases in which the 
imouiit of money involved does not exceed ten pounds. 



POSTSCRIPT. 

i-OUND IN THE HANDWRITING OF MR. KNICKERBOCKERc 

The preceding tale is given almost in the precise 
words in which I heard it related at a Corporation 
meeting of the ancient city of the Manhattoes,^ at 
which were present many of its sagest and most illus- 
trious burghers. The narrator was a pleasant, shabby, 
gentlemanly old fellow in pepper-and-salt clothes, with 
a sadly humorous face ; and one whom I strongly sus- 
pected of being poor, — he made such efforts to be 
entertaining. When his story was concluded there 
was much laughter and approbation, particularly from 
two or three deputy aldermen, who had been asleep 
the greater part of the time. There was, however, 
one tall, dry-looking old gentleman, with beetling eye- 
brows, who maintained a grave and rather severe face 
throughout ; now and then folding his arms, inclining 
his head, and looking down upon the floor, as if turn' 
ing a doubt over in his mind. He was one of your 
wary men, who never laugh but upon good grounds 
— when they have reason and the law on their side. 
When the mirth of the rest of the company had sub- 
sided, and silence was restored, he leaned one arm on 
the elbow of his chair, and sticking the other akimbo, 
demanded, with a slight but exceedingly sage motion 

1 The city of New York, as it is named in Diedrich Knicker- 
bockerh (Irving's) History of New York. 



POSTSCRIPT. 75 

of the head, and contraction of the brow, what was* 
the moral of the story, and what it went to prove. 

The story-teller, who was just putting a glass of 
wine to his lips, as a refreshment after his toils, 
paused for a moment, looked at his inquirer with an 
air of infinite deference, and, lowering the glass slowly 
to the table, observed that the story was intended 
most logically to prove : — 

"That there is no situation in life but has its ad- 
vantages and pleasures, provided we will but take a 
joke as we find it ; 

" That, therefore, he that runs races with goblin 
troopers is likely to have rough riding of it ; 

" Ergo, for a country schoolmaster to be refused 
the hand of a Dutch heiress is a certain stej) to high 
preferment in the state." 

The cautious old gentleman knit his brows tenfold 
closer after this explanation, being sorely puzzled by 
the ratiocination of the syllogism ; while, methought, 
the one in pepper-and-salt eyed him with something 
of a triumphant leer. At length he observed that 
all this was very well, but still he thought the story 
a little on the extravagant ; there were one or two 
points on which he had his doubts. 

" Faith, sir," replied the story-teller, " as to that 
matter, I don't believe one half of it myself." 

D. K 



INTRODUCTION TO PHILIP OF FOKANOKETc 

King Philip's War was due to the steady encroachment 
of the English upon the forests and hunting-grounds of the 
Indians. For fifty-five years peaceful relations had been 
maintained between the colonists and the powerful tribe of 
the Wampanoags {Waum-pa-iio'-agz), on whose lands 
Plymouth and other settlements had been planted. Philip, 
chief of the tribe, foreseeing the ultimate destruction of his 
people, resolved to depart from the policy of Massasoit, his 
father, and to turn upon the colonists. Rumors of war 
preceded its outbreak for many years. It is still a matter 
of doubt whether hostilities began in an accident or as the 
result of a deliberate plot. Once opened, they were carried 
on in a vindictive and desperate spirit. The war began in 
June, 1675, at Swansea, in Plymouth colony. It involved 
the Narragansetts and other New England tribes. Month 
after month saw scenes of ambush, assault, burning, pilla- 
ging, and butchery. The war was as savagely carried on 
by the English as by the Indians. It ended in the summer 
of 1676 through sheer exhaustion of the Indians. During 
this war thirteen towns were destroyed and many others 
suffered severely, six hundred buildings were burned, six 
hundred colonists were slain, many thousands suffered di- 
rectly from the losses that accompany war, and frightful 
expenses were rolled up, entailing burdens upon feeble and 
sparsely settled communities that it took years to lighten. 
The mental anguish everywhere caused by the secrecy and 
cruelty of methods natural to Indian warfare, even when 
the dreaded blow did not fall, cannot be told. 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 77 

From two to three thousand Indians were killed or cap- 
tured, and the wretched remnants of the tribes whose power 
was broken either united with other tribes or, lingering 
about their old homes, ceased thereafter to be a serious 
menace to the colonies. 

The various remains of Indian tribes in Massachusetts 
to-day, some of them descendants of the Indians that sur- 
vived King Philip's War, number between one and two 
thousand souls. They are, to a certain extent, wards of the 
State of whose soil they were once the haughty owners. 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 

AN INDIAN MEMOIR. 

As monumental bronze unchanged his look ; 
A soul that pity touch'd, but never shook : 
Train'd, from his tree-rock'd cradle to his bier, 
The fierce extremes of good and ill to brook 
Impassive — fearing but the shame of fear — 
A stoic of the vk^oods — a man without a tear. 

Campbell. 

It is to be regretted that those early writers who 
treated of the discovery and settlement of America 
have not given us more particular and candid accounts 
of the remarkable characters that flourished in savage 
life. The scanty anecdotes which have reached us are 
full of peculiarity and interest ; they furnish us with 
nearer glimpses of human nature, and show what man 
is in a comparatively primitive state, and what he 
owes to civilization. There is something of the charm 
of discovery in lighting upon these wild and unex- 
plored tracts of human nature ; in witnessing, as it 
were, the native growth of moral sentiment ; and per- 
ceiving those generous and romantic qualities which 



78 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

have been artificially cultivated by society, vegetating 
in spontaneous hardihood and rude magnificence. 

In civilized life, where the happiness, and indeed 
almost the existence, of man depends so much upon 
the opinion of his fellow-men, he is constantly acting 
a studied part. The bold and peculiar traits of native 
character are refined away, or softened down by the 
levelling influence of what is termed good breeding ; 
and he practises so many petty deceptions, and affects 
so many generous sentiments, for the purposes of pop- 
ularity, that it is difftcult to distinguish his real from 
his artificial character. The Indian, on the contrary, 
free from the restraints and refinements of polished 
\ife, and, in a great degree, a solitary and indepen- 
dent being, obeys the impulses of his inclination or 
the dictates of his judgment; and thus the attributes 
of his nature, being freely indulged, grow singly great 
and striking. Society is like a lawn, where every 
roughness is smoothed, every bramble eradicated, and 
where the eye is delighted by the smiling verdure of a 
velvet surface ; he, however, who would study nature 
in its wildness and variety, must plunge into the for- 
est, must explore the glen, must stem the torrent, and 
dare the precipice. 

These reflections arose on casually looking through 
a volume of early colonial history wherein are re- 
corded, with great bitterness, the outrages of the 
Indians, and their wars with the settlers of New Eng 
land. It is painful to perceive, even from these par 
tial narratives, how the footsteps of civilization may 
be traced in the blood of the aborigines ; how easily 
the colonists were moved to hostility by the lust ol 
conquest ; how merciless and exterminating was their 
warfare. The imagination shrinks at the idea, how 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 79 

many intellectual beings were hunted from the earth ; 
how many brave and noble hearts, of nature's sterling 
coinage, were broken down and trampled in the dust ! 
Such was the fate of Philip of Pokanoket,i an 
Indian warrior, whose name was once a terror through- 
out Massachusetts and Connecticut. He was the 
most distinguished of a number of contemporary sa- 
chems who reigned over the Pequods, the Narragan- 
setts, the Wampanoags, and the other eastern tribes^ 
at the time of the first settlement of New England : a 
band of native untaught heroes ; who made the most 
generous struggle of which human nature is capable ; 
fighting to the last gasp in the cause of their coun- 
try, without a hope of victory or a thought of renown. 
Worthy of an age of poetry, and fit subjects for 
local story and romantic fiction, they have left scarcely 
any authentic traces on the page of history, but stalk 

^ Po-ko-no'ket, now Bristol, Rhode Island. The orthography 
of Indian names in this memoir is unsettled. The early colo- 
nists heard these names from Indian lips, but the}-^ could not 
spell them in a uniform way. The same Indian sometimes had 
several names. The same name showed minor diversities in 
pronunciation. The colonists were not exact in interpreting In- 
dian sounds. Moreover, they did not spell common English 
words with consistency. It was natural, therefore, that a great 
deal of confusion should appear both in their spelling and in 
their pronunciation of Indian names. Thus Philip's name ap= 
pears in various deeds and records under the following forms: 
Pometacom, Pumatacom, Pometacome, Metacom, Metacome, Meta- 
cum, Metacomet, Metamo' cet, and so on. For Pokonoket may be 
found Poconoket, Pocanakett, Pakanawkett, and Pawkunnawkeet ; 
for Miantoni'mo, Miayitonimoh, Miantonomio^ Miantonomo, Mian- 
tonomah, and Miantunnomali ; for Canon'chet, QumiancJiit, Qua- 
nanchett, and Quanonchet ; for Wet'amoe, Weetimoo and Wetti- 
more. Study of these variations reveals the pronunciation of 
the forms adopted by Irving. 



80 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

like gigantic shadows in the dim twilight of tradi- 
tion/ 

When the Pilgrims, as the Plymouth settlers are 
called by their descendants, first took refuge on the 
shores of the New World, from the religious persecu- 
tions of the Old, their situation was to the last degree 
gloomy and disheartening. Few in number, and that 
number rapidly perishing away through sickness and 
hardships ; surrounded by a howling wilderness and 
savage tribes ; exposed to the rigors of an almost arc- 
tic winter, and the vicissitudes of an ever-shifting cli- 
mate ; their minds were filled with doleful forebodings, 
and nothing preserved them from sinking into despon- 
dency but the strong excitement of religious enthusi- 
asm. In this forlorn situation they were visited by 
Massasoit, chief sagamore of the Wampanoags, a 
powerful chief, who reigned over a great extent of 
country. Instead of taking advantage of the scanty 
number of the strangers, and expelling them from his 
territories into which they had intruded, he seemed at 
once to conceive for them a generous friendship, and 
extended towards them the rites of primitive hospital- 
ity. He came early in the spring to their settlement 
of New Plymouth,*^ attended by a mere handful of fol- 
lowers ; entered into a solemn league of peace and 
amity ; sold them a portion of the soil, and promised 
to secure for them the good will of his savage allies. 
Whatever may be said of Indian perfidy, it is certain 

1 While correcting the proof-sheets of this article, the author 
is informed that a celebrated English poet has nearly finished an 
heroic poem on the story of Philip of Pokanoket. — W. I. 

2 Simply Plymouth, Massachusetts, which for a time was 
spoken of as New Plymouth to distinguish it from the town of 
the same name in England, 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 81 

that the integrity and good faith of Massasoit have 
never been impeached, lie continued a firm and 
magnanimous friend of the white men ; suffering them 
to extend tlieir possessions, and to strengthen them- 
selves in the land ; and betraying no jealousy of their 
increasing power and prosperity. Shortly before his 
death, he came once more to New Plymouth, with his 
son Alexander, for the purpose of renewing the cove- 
nant of peace, and of securing it to his posterity. 

At this conference, he endeavored to protect the 
religion of his forefathers from the encroaching zeal 
of the missionaries ; and stipulated that no further 
attempt should be made to draw off his people from 
their ancient faith ; but, finding the English obsti- 
nately opposed to any such condition, he mildly relin- 
quished the demand. Almost the last act of his life 
was to bring his two sons,^ Alexander and Philip (as 
they had been named by the English), to the residence 
of a principal settler, recommending mutual kindness 
and confidence, and entreating that the same love 
and amity which had existed between the white men 
and himself might be continued afterwards with his 
children. The good old sachem died in peace, and 
was happily gathered to his fathers before sorrow 
came upon his tribe ; his children remained behind to 
experience the ingratitude of white men. 

1 " In Anno 1662, Plymouth Colony was in some Danger of 
being involved in Trouble by the Wampanoag Indians. After 
Massasoit was dead, his two Sous called Wamsutta and Metacomet 
[Irving gives the name as Metamocet] came to the Court at 
Plymo\ith pretending high respect for the English, and therefore 
desired English Names might be imposed on them, whereupon 
the Court there named Wamsutta (the elder Brother) Alexander, 
and Metacomet (the younger Brother) Philip." — Increase Mather. 
The English doubtless had in mind the famous Macedonian 
warriors. 



82 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

His eldest son, Alexander, succeeded him. He was 
of a quick and impetuous temper, and proudly tena- 
cious of his hereditary rights and dignity. The intru- 
sive policy and dictatorial conduct of the strangers 
excited his indignation ; and he beheld with uneasi- 
ness their exterminating wars with the neighboring 
tribes. He was doomed soon to incur their hostility, 
being accused of plotting with the Narragansetts to 
rise against the English and drive them from the 
land. It is impossible to say whether this accusation 
was warranted by facts, or was grounded on mere sus- 
picions. It is evident, however, by the violent and 
overbearing measures of the settlers, that they had by 
this time begun to feel conscious of the rapid increase 
of their power, and to grow harsh and inconsiderate 
In their treatment of the natives. They dispatched 
an armed force to seize upon Alexander and to 
brinof him before their courts. He was traced to his 
woodland haunts, and surprised at a hunting house, 
where he was reposing with a band of his followers, 
unarmed, after the toils of the chase. The suddenness 
of his arrest, and the outrage offered to his sovereign 
dignity, so preyed upon the irascible feelings of this 
proud savage as to throw him into a raging fever ; he 
was permitted to return home on condition of sending 
his son as a pledge for his re-appearance ; but the blow 
he had received was fatal, and before he reached his 
home he fell a victim to the agonies of a wounded spirit. 

The successor of Alexander was Metamocet, or 
King Philip, as he was called by the settlers, on 
account of his lofty spirit and ambitious temper. 
These, together with his well-known energy and enter- 
prise, had rendered him an object of great jealousy 
and apprehension, and he was accused of having 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 85 

alwa3^s cherished a secret and implacable hostility to- 
wards the whites. Such may very probably, and very 
naturally, have been the case. He considered them as 
originally but mere intruders into the country, who 
had presumed upon indulgence, and were extending 
an influence baneful to savage life. He saw the 
whole race of his countrymen melting before them 
from the face of the earth ; their territories slipping 
from their hands, and their tribes becoming feeble, 
scattered, and dependent. It may be said that the 
soil was originally purchased by the settlers; but who 
does not know the nature of Indian purchases, in the 
early periods of colonization? The Europeans al- 
ways made thrifty bargains, through their superior 
adroitness in traffic ; and they gained vast accessions 
of territory, by easily-provoked hostilities. An uncul- 
tivated savage is never a nice inquirer into the refine- 
ments of law, by which an injury may be gradually 
and legally inflicted. Leading facts are all by which 
he judges; and it was enough for Philip to know 
that before the intrusion of the Europeans his coun^ 
trymen were lords of the soil, and that now they were 
becoming vagabonds in the land of their fathers. 

But whatever may have been his feelings of general 
hostility, and his particular indignation at the treat- 
ment of his brother, he suppressed them for the pres- 
ent ; renewed the contract with the settlers ; and 
resided peaceably for many years at Pokanoket, or, as 
it was called by the English, Mount Hope, the ancient 
seat of dominion of his tribe. Suspicions, however, 
which were at first but vague and indefinite, began to 
acquire form and substance ; and he was at length 
charged with attempting to instigate the various east- 
ern tribes to rise at once, and, by a simultaneous 



84 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

effort, to throw off the yoke of their oppressors. It is 
difficult at this distant period to assign the proper 
credit due to these early accusations against the Indi- 
ans. There was a proneness to suspicion, and an 
aptness to acts of violence on the part of the whites, 
that gave weight and importance to every idle tale, 
Informers abounded where tale-bearing met witl 
countenance and reward, and the sword was readily 
unsheathed when its success was certain and it carved 
out empire. 

The only positive evidence on record against Philip 
is the accusation of one Sausaman, a renegade Indian, 
whose natural cunning had been quickened by a par- 
tial education which he had received among the set- 
tlers. He changed his faith and his allegiance two or 
three times with a facility that evinced the looseness 
of his principles. He had acted for some time as 
Philip's confidential secretary and counsellor, and had 
enjoyed his bounty and protection. Finding, however, 
that the clouds of adversity were gathering round his 
patron, he abandoned his service and went over to the 
whites ; and, in order to gain their favor, charged his 
former benefactor with plotting against their safety. 
A rigorous investigation took place. Philip and sev- 
eral of his subjects submitted to be examined, but 
nothing was proved against them. The settlers, how- 
ever, had now gone too far to retract ; they had pre- 
viously determined that Philip was a dangerous neigh- 
bor ; they had publicly evinced their distrust, and had 
done enough to insure his hostility ; according, there- 
fore, to the usual mode of reasoning in these cases, his 
destruction had become necessary to their security. 
Sausaman, the treacherous informer, was shortly after 
found dead in a pond, having fallen a victim to the 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 85 

vengeance of his tribe. Three Iiulituis, one of whom 
was a friend and counsellor of Philip, were appre-- 
hended and tried, and, on the testimony of one very 
questionable witness, were condemned and executed as 
murderers. 

This treatment of his subjects and ignominious 
punishment of his friend outraged the pride and exas- 
perated the passions of Philip. The bolt which had 
fallen thus at his very feet awakened him to the gath- 
ering storm, and he determined to trust himself no 
longer in the power of the white men. The fate of 
his insulted and broken-hearted brother still rankled 
in his mind ; and he had a further warning in the 
tragical story of Miantonimo, a great sachem of the 
Narragansetts, who, after manfully facing his accus- 
ers before a tribunal of the colonists, exculpating 
himself from a charge of conspiracy, and receiving 
assurances of amity, had been perfidiously dispatched 
at their instigation. Philip therefore gathered his 
fighting men about him, persuaded all strangers that 
he could to join his cause, sent the women and chil- 
dren to the Narragansetts for safety, and wherever 
he appeared was continually surrounded by armed 
warriors. 

When the two parties were thus in a state of dis^ 
trust and irritation, the least spark was sufficient to 
set them in a flame. The Indians, having weapons in 
their hands, grew mischievous, and committed various 
petty depredations. In one of their maraudings, a 
warrior was fired upon and killed by a settler. This 
was the signal for open hostilities ; the Indians pressed 
to revenge the death of their comrade, and the alarm 
of war resounded through the Plymouth colony. 

In the early chronicles of these dark and melan« 



86 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

choly times, we meet with many indications of the 
diseased state of the public mind. The gloom of 
religious abstraction, and the wildness of their situa- 
tion, among trackless forests and savage tribes, had 
disposed the colonists to superstitious fancies, and had 
filled their imaginations with the frightful chimeras 
of witchcraft and spectrology.^ They were much 
o-iven also to a belief in omens. The troubles with 
Philip and his Indians were preceded, we are told, by 
a variety of those awful warnings which forerun great 
and public calamities. The perfect form of an Indian 
bow appeared in the air at New Plymouth, which was 
looked upon by the inhabitants as a " prodigious 
apparition." At Hadley, Northampton, and other 
towns in their neighborhood, " was heard the report 
of a great piece of ordnance, with the shaking of the 
earth and a considerable echo. " Others were alarmed 
on a still, sunshiny morning by the discharge of guns 
and muskets; bullets seemed to whistle past them, 
and the noise of drums resounded in the air, seeming 
to pass away to the westward ; others fancied that 
they heard the galloping of horses over their heads ; 
and certain monstrous births which took place about 
the time filled the superstitious in some towns with 
doleful forebodings. Many of these portentous sights 
and sounds may be ascribed to natural phenomena; 
to the northern lights which occur vividly in those 
latitudes ; the meteors which explode in the air ; the 
casual rushing of a blast through the top branches of 
the forest ; the crash of falling trees or disrupted 
rocks ; and to those other uncouth sounds and echoes 
which will sometimes strike the ear so strangely 

1 To Irving's mind this word means the supposed science that 
treats of apparitions. 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 87 

amidst the profound stillness of woodland solitudes. 
These may have startled some melancholy imagina- 
tions, may have been exaggerated by the love for the 
taarvellous, and listened to with that avidity with 
which we devour whatever is fearful and. mysterious. 
The universal currency of these superstitious fancies, 
and the grave record made of them by one of the 
learned men ^ of the day, are strongly characteristic 
of the times. 

The nature of the contest that ensued was such as 
too often distinguishes the warfare between civilized 
men and savages. On the part of the whites it was 
conducted with superior skill and success, but with a 
wastefulness of the blood and a disregard of the nat- 
ural rights of their antagonists ; on the part of the 
Indians it was waged with the desperation of men 
fearless of death, and who had nothing to expect 
from peace, but humiliation, dependence, and decay. 

The events of the war are transmitted to us by a 
worthy clergyman of the time, who dwells with hor- 
ror and indignation on every hostile act of the Indi- 
ans, however justifiable, while he mentions with 
applause the most sanguinary atrocities of the whites. 
Philip is reviled as a murderer and a traitor, without 
considering that he was a true born prince, gallantly 
fighting at the head of his subjects to avenge the 
wrongs of his family, to retrieve the tottering power 
of his line, and to deliver his native land from the 
oppression of usurping strangers. 

1 Rev. Increase Mather, pastor of the Old North Church in 
Boston for sixty-two years. He was born in 1639 and died in 
1723. Among his ninety-two distinct publications are full 
accounts of King Philip's War, in which popular superstitions 
and well authenticated facts are woven together after the fash- 
ion of the times. 



88 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

The project of a wide and simultaneous revolt, if 
such had really been formed, was worthy of a capa- 
cious mind, and, had it not been prematurely discov- 
ered, might have been overwhelming in its conse- 
quences. The war that actually broke out was but a 
war of detail, a mere succession of casual exploits 
and unconnected enterprises. Still it sets forth the 
military genius and daring prowess of Philip ; and 
wherever, in the prejudiced and passionate narrations 
that have been given of it, we can arrive at simple 
facts, we find him displaying a vigorous mind, a fer- 
tility in expedients, a contempt of suffering and hard- 
ship, and an unconquerable resolution, that command 
our sympathy and applause. 

Driven from his paternal domains at Mount Hope, 
he threw himself into the depths of those vast and 
trackless forests that skirted the settlements, and were 
almost impervious to anything but a wild beast or an 
Indian. Here he gathered together his forces, like 
the storm accumulating its stores of mischief in the 
bosom of the thunder-cloud, and would suddenly 
emerge at a time and place least expected, carrying 
havoc and dismay into the villages. There were now 
and then indications of these impending ravages that 
filled the minds of the colonists with awe and appre- 
hension. The report of a distant gun would perhaps 
be heard from the solitary woodland, where there was 
known to be no white man ; the cattle which had been 
wandering in the woods would sometimes return home 
wounded ; or an Indian or two would be seen lurking 
about the skirts of the forests, and suddenly disap- 
pearing, as the lightning will sometimes be seen play- 
ing silently about the edge of the cloud that is brew- 
ing up the tempest. 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 89 

Though sometimes pursued and even surrounded 
by the settlers, yet Philip as often escaped almost mi- 
raculously from their toils, and, plunging- into the wil- 
derness, would be lost to all search or inquiry until he 
again emerged at some far distant quarter, laying the 
country desolate. Among his strongholds were the 
great swamps or morasses whicli extend in some parts 
of New England, composed of loose bogs of deep 
black mud, perplexed with thickets, brambles, rank 
weeds, the shattered and mouldering trunks of fallen 
trees, overshadowed by lugubrious hemlocks. The un- 
certain footing and the tangled mazes of these shaggy 
wilds rendered them almost impracticable to the white 
man, though the Indian could thread their labyrinths 
with the agility of a deer. Into one of these, the 
great swamp of Pocasset Neck, was Philip once driven 
with a band of his followers. The English did not 
dare to pursue him, fearing to venture into these dark 
and frightful recesses, where they might perish in fens 
and miry pits or be shot down by lurking foes. They 
therefore invested the entrance to the neck, and began 
to build a fort, with the thought of starving out the 
foe ; but Philip and his warriors wafted themselves 
on a raft over an arm of tlie sea, in the dead of night, 
leaving the women and children behind ; and escaped 
away to the westward, kindling the flames of war 
among the tribes of Massachusetts and the Nipmuck 
coantry,! and threatening the colony of Connecticut. 

1 Written also Nipmug, Nipmuk, and Neepmuck. This coun- 
try was northwest of the lands of the Wampanoags, among 
whom the Pilgrims settled. It lay chiefly in the southern part 
of the Worcester County of to-day, but partly in northern Con- 
necticut. At the time of King Philip's War, it was within the 
jurisdiction of the Colony of Massachusetts Bay. An old writer 
tells how John Eliot, the apostle to the Indians, visited "the 
seven new praying towns in the Nipmug country " in 1663. 



90 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

In this way Philip became a theme of universal 
apprehension. The mystery in which he was envel- 
oped exaggerated his real terrors. He was an evil 
that walked in darkness, whose coming none could 
foresee, and against which none knew when to be on 
the alert. ' The whole country abounded with rumors 
and alarms. Philip seemed almost possessed of ubi- 
quity ; for, in whatever part of the widely extended 
frontier an irruption from the forest took place, Philip 
was said to be its leader. Many superstitious notions 
also were circulated concerning him. He was said to 
deal in necromancy, and to be attended by an old In- 
dian witch or prophetess, whom he consulted, and who 
assisted him by her charms and incantations. This 
indeed was frequently the case with Indian chiefs ; 
either through their own credulity, or to act upon that 
of their followers ; and the influence of the prophet 
and the dreamer over Indian superstitions has been 
fully evidenced in recent instances of savage warfare. 

At the time that Philip effected his escape from 
Pocasset, his fortunes were in a desperate condition. 
His forces had been thinned by repeated fights, and 
he had lost almost the whole of his resources. In this 
time of adversity he found a faithful friend in Canon- 
chet, chief sachem of all the Narragansetts, He was 
the son and heir of Miantonimo, the great sachem, 
who, as already mentioned, after an honorable acquit- 
tal of the charge of conspiracy, had been privately 
put to death at the perfidious instigations of the set- 
tlers. " He was the heir," says the old chronicler, 
" of all his father's pride and insolence, as well as of 
his malice towards the English ; " he certainly was the 
heir of his insults and injuries, and the legitimate 
avenger of his murder. Though he had forborne to 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 91 

take an active part in this hopeless war, yet he re- 
Beived Philip and his broken forces with open arms, 
|nd gave them the most generous countenance and 
support. This at once drew upon him the hostility of 
the English, and it was determined to strike a signal 
blow, that should involve both the sachems in one 
common ruin. A great force was therefore gathered 
tegether from Massachusetts, Plymouth,^ and Con-=- 
necticut, and was sent into the Narragansett country 
in the depth of winter, when the swamps, being frozen 
and leafless, could be traversed with comparative facil- 
ity, and would no longer afford dark and impenetra- 
ble fastnesses to the Indians. 

Apprehensive of attack, Canonchet had conveyed 
the greater part of his stores, together with the old, 
the infirm, the women and children of his tribe, to a 
strong fortress, where he and Philip had likewise 
drawn up the flower of their forces. This fortress, 
deemed by the Indians impregnable, was situated upon 
a rising mound or kind of island, of five or six acres, 
in the midst of a swamp ; it was constructed with a 
degree of judgment and skill vastly superior to what 
is usually displayed in Indian fortification, and indi- 
cative of the martial genius of these two chieftains. 

Guided by a renegado Indian, the English pene- 
trated, through December snows, to this stronghold, 
and came upon the garrison by surprise. The fight 
was fierce and tumultuous. The assailants were re- 
pulsed in their first attack, and several of their brav- 
est officers were shot down in the act of storming the 
fortress, sword in hand. The assault was renewed 

^ It should be remembered that Massachusetts and Plymouth 
were at this time separate colonies, each with its own governor 
and legislative body. They were not united until 1692. 



92 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

with greater success. A lodgment was effected. The 
Indians were driven from one post to another. They 
disputed their ground inch by inch, fighting with the 
fury of despair. Most of their veterans were cut to 
pieces ; and after a long and bloody battle, Philip and 
Canonchet, with a handful of surviving warriors, re- 
treated from the fort, and took refuge in the thickets 
of the surrounding forest. 

The victors set fire to the wigwams and the fort ; 
the whole was soon in a blaze ; many of the old men, 
the women, and the children perished in the flames. 
This last outrage overcame even the stoicism of the 
savage. The neighboring woods resounded with the 
yells of rage and despair uttered by the fugitive war- 
riors as they beheld the destruction of their dwellings, 
and heard the agonizing cries of their wives and off- 
spring. " The burning of the wigwams," says a con- 
temporary writer,! " the shrieks and cries of the 
women and children, and the yelling of the warriors, 
exhibited a most horrible and affecting scene, so that 
it greatly moved some of the soldiers." The same 
writer cautiously adds, "They were in much doubt 
then, and afterwards seriously inquired, whether burn- 
ing' their enemies alive could be consistent with hu- 
manity and the benevolent principles of the gospel." 

The fate of the brave and generous Canonchet is 
worthy of particular mention : the last scene of his 
life is one of the noblest instances on record of Indian 
magnanimity. 

Broken down in his power and resources by this 
signal defeat, yet faithful to his ally and to the hap- 
less cause which he had espoused, he rejected all over- 

1 Rev. W. Ruggles, from whose manuscripts the quotations 
are made. 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 93 

tures of peace, offered on condition of betraying 
Philip and his followers, and declared that " he would 
fight it out to the last man, rather than become a ser- 
vant to the English." His home being destroyed, his 
country harassed and laid waste by the incursions of 
the conquerors, he was obliged to wander away to the 
banks of the Connecticut, where he formed a rallying 
point to the whole body of western Indians, and laid 
waste several of the English settlements. 

Early in the spring he departed on a hazardous 
expedition, with only thirty chosen men, to penetrate 
to Seaconck, in the vicinity of Mount Hope, and to 
procure seed-corn to plant for the sustenance of his 
troops. This little band of adventurers had passed 
safely through the Pequod country,^ and were in the 
centre of the Narragansett, resting at some wigwams 
near Pautucket River, when an alarm was given of an 
approaching enemy. Having but seven men by him 
at the time, Canonchet dispatched two of them to the 
top of a neighboring hill, to bring intelligence of the 
foe. 

Panic-struck by the appearance of a troop of Eng- 
lish and Indians rapidly advancing, they fled in 
breathless terror past their chieftain, without stopping 
to inform him of the danger. Canonchet sent another 
scout, who did the same. He then sent two more, one 
of whom, hurrying back in confusion and affright, 
told him that the* whole British army was at hand. 
Canonchet saw there was no choice but immediate 
flight. He attempted to escape round the hill, but 
was perceived and hotly pursued by the hostile Indi- 
ans and a few of the fleetest of the English. Finding 
the swiftest pursuer close upon his heels, he threw off 

1 Southern Connecticut. 



94 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

first his blanket, tlien liis silver-laced coat and belt of 
peag,^ by which his enemies knew him to be Canon- 
chet, and redoubled the eagerness of pursuit. 

At length, in dashing through the river, his foot 
slipped upon a stone, and he fell so deep as to wet his 
gun. This accident so struck him with despair that, 
as he afterwards confessed, " his heart and his bowels 
turned within him, and he became like a rotten stick, 
void of strength." 

To such a degree was he unnerved that, being 
seized by a Pequod Indian within a short distance of 
the river, he made no resistance, though a man of 
great vigor of body and boldness of heart. But on 
being made prisoner, the whole pride of his spirit 
rose within him ; and from that moment we find, in 
the anecdotes given by his enemies, nothing but 
repeated flashes of elevated and prince-like heroism. 
Being questioned by one of the English who first 
came up with him, and who had not attained his 
twenty-second year, the proud-hearted warrior, looking 
with lofty contempt upon his youthful countenance, 
replied, " You are a child — you cannot understand 
matters of war — let your brother or your chief come 
— him will I answer." 

Though repeated offers were made to him of his 
life, on condition of submitting with his nation to the 
English, yet he rejected them with disdain, and re- 
fused to send any proposals of the kind to the great 
body of his subjects, saying that he knew none of 
them would comply. Being reproached with his 
breach of faith towards the whites, his boast that he 

^ Pronounced peeg : bits of shells, rounded and polished, and 
strung on a thread. These beads were used as money, the black 
and purple varieties being valued at twice as much as the white. 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 95 

would not deliver up a Wampanoag nor the paring 
of a Wampanoag's nail, and liis threat that he would 
burn the English alive in their houses, he disdained 
to justify himself, haughtily answering that others 
were as forward for the war as himself, and '^ he 
desired to hear no more thereof." 

So noble and unshaken a sjjirit, so true a fidelity to 
his cause and his friend, might have touched the feel° 
ings of the generous and the brave ; but Canonchet 
was an Indian; a being towards whom war had no 
courtesy, humanity no law, religion no compassion, — 
he was condemned to die. The last words of his that 
are recorded are worthy the greatness of his soul. 
When sentence of death was passed upon him, he 
observed " that he liked it well, for he should die 
before his heart was soft, or he had spoken anything 
unworthy of himself." His enemies gave him the 
death of a soldier, for he was shot at Stoningham, by 
three young sachems of his own rank. 

The defeat of the Narragansett fortress and the 
death of Canonchet were fatal blows to the fortunes 
of King Philip. He made an ineffectual attempt to 
raise a head of war, by stirring up the Mohawks ^ to 
take arms ; but though possessed of the native talents 
of a statesman, his arts were counteracted by the supe- 
rior arts of his enlightened enemies, and the terror of 
their warlike skill began to subdue the resolution of 
the neighboring tribes. The unfortunate chieftain 
saw himself daily stripped of power, and his ranks 
rapidly thinning around him. Some were suborned 
by the whites ; others fell victims to hunger and 

^ One of the five (subsequently six) tribes that made up the 
great New York confederacy known as the Five Nations. The 
Mohawks dwelt in the valley of the river that bears their name. 



96 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

fatigue, and to the frequent attacks by which they 
were harassed. His stores were all captured ; his 
chosen friends were swept away from before his eyes ; 
his uncle was shot down by his side ; his sister was 
carried into captivity ; and in one of his narrow 
escapes he was compelled to leave his beloved wife 
and only son to the mercy of the enemy. " His ruin," 
says the historian, " being thus gradually carried on, 
his misery was not prevented, but augmented thereby; 
being himself made acquainted with the sense and 
experimental feeling of the captivity of his children, 
loss of friends, slaughter of his subjects, bereavement 
of all family relations, and being stripped of all out- 
ward comforts, before his own life should be taken 
away." 

To fill up the measure of his misfortunes, his own 
followers began to plot against his life, that by sacri- 
ficing him they might purchase dishonorable safety. 
Through treachery, a number of his faithful adher- 
ents, the subjects of Wetamoe, an Indian princess of 
Pocasset, a near kinswoman and confederate of Philip, 
were betrayed into the hands of the enemy. Wetamoe 
was among them at the time, and attempted to make 
her escape by crossing a neighboring river ; either 
exhausted by swimming, or starved with cold and 
hunger, she was found dead and naked near the 
water side. But persecution ceased not at the grave ; 
even death, the refuge of the wretched, where the 
wicked commonly cease from troubling, was no pro- 
tection to this outcast female, whose great crime was 
affectionate fidelity to her kinsman and her friend. 
Her corpse was the object of unmanly and dastardly 
vengeance ; the head was severed from the body and 
set upon a pole, and was thus exposed, at Taunton, to 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 97 

the view of her captive subjects. They immediately 
recognized the features of their unfortunate queen, 
and were so affected at this barbarous spectacle that, 
WQ are told, they broke forth into the " most horrid 
and diabolical lamentations." 

However Philip had borne up against the compli- 
cated miseries and misfortunes that surrounded him, 
the treachery of his followers seemed to wring his 
heart and reduce him to despondency. It is said that 
" he never rejoiced afterwards, nor had success in any 
of his designs." The spring of hope was broken — 
the ardor of enterprise was extinguished; he looked 
around, and all was danger and darkness ; there was 
no eye to pity, nor any arm that could bring deliver- 
ance. With a scanty band of followers, who still 
remained true to his desperate fortunes, the unhappy 
Philip wandered back to the vicinity of Mount Hope, 
the ancient dwelling of his fathers. Here he lurked 
about, " like a spectre, among the scenes of former 
power and prosperity, now bereft of home, of family 
and friend." There needs no better picture of his des- 
titute and piteous situation, than that furnished by 
the homely pen of the chronicler, who is unwarily 
enlisting the feelings of the reader in favor of the 
hapless warrior whom he reviles. " Philip," he says^ 
" like a savage wild beast, having been hunted by the 
English forces through the woods above a hundred 
miles backward and forward, at last was driven to 
his own den upon Mount Hope, where he retired 
with a few of his best friends into a swamp, which 
proved but a prison to keep him fast till the messen- 
gers of death came by divine permission to execute 
vengeance upon him." 

Even in this last refuge of desperation and despair, 



98 WASHINGTON IRVING. 

a sullen grandeur gathers round his memory. We pic* 
ture him to ourselves seated among his careworn fol' 
lowers, brooding in silence over his blasted fortunes, 
and acquiring a savage sublimity from the wildness 
and dreariness of his lurking-place. Defeated but 
not dismayed, crushed to the earth but not humili- 
ated, he seemed to grow more haughty beneath dis- 
aster and to experience a fierce satisfaction in drain- 
ing the last dregs of bitterness. Little minds are 
tamed and subdued by misfortune ; but great minds 
rise above it. The very idea of submission awakened 
the fury of Philip, and he smote to death one of his 
followers who proposed an expedient of peace. The 
brother of the victim made his escape, and in revenge 
betrayed the retreat of his chieftain. A body of white 
men and Indians were immediately dispatched to the 
swamp where Philip lay crouched, glaring with fury 
and despair. Before he was aware of their approach, 
they had begun to surround him. In a little while he 
saw five of his trustiest followers laid dead at his feet ; 
all resistance was vain ; he rushed forth from his cov- 
ert, and made a headlong attempt to escape, but was 
shot through the heart by a renegado Indian of his 
own nation. 

Such is the scanty story of the brave but unfortu- 
nate King Philip ; persecuted while living, slandered 
and dishonored when dead. If, however, we consider 
even the prejudiced anecdotes furnished us by his ene- 
mies, we may perceive in them traces of amiable and 
lofty character, sufficient to awaken sympathy for his 
fate and respect for his memory. We find that 
amidst all the harassing cares and ferocious passions 
of constant warfare, he was alive to the softer feelings 
of connubial love and paternal tenderness, and to the 



PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 99 

generous sentiment of friendship. The captivity of 
his *' beloved wife and only son " is mentioned with 
exultation, as causing him poignant misery ; the death 
of any near friend is triumphantly recorded as a new 
blow on his sensibilities ; but the treachery and deser- 
tion of many of his followers, in whose affections he 
had confided, is said to have desolated his heart, and 
to have bereaved him of all further comfort. He was 
a patriot, attached to his native soil ; a prince, true to 
his subjects, and indignant of their wrongs ; a sol- 
dier, daring in battle, firm in adversity, patient of 
fatigue, of hunger, of every variety of bodily suffer- 
ing, and ready to perish in the cause he had espoused. 
Proud of heart, and with an untamable love of nat- 
ural liberty, he preferred to enjoy it among the beasts 
of the forests, or in the dismal and famished recesses 
of swamps and morasses, rather than bow his haughty 
spirit to submission, and live dependent and despised 
in the ease and luxury of the settlements. With 
heroic qualities and bold achievements that would 
have graced a civilized warrior, and have rendered 
him the theme of the poet and the historian, he lived 
a wanderer and a fugitive in his native land, and went 
down, like a lonely bark foundering amid darkness 
and tempest, — without a pitying eye to weep his falls 
or a friendly hand to record his struggle. 



EXPLANATORY NOTES. 



RIP VAN WINKLE. 

Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow are the two 
pieces of writing by which Irving is best known to-day. They 
are in themselves excellent stories, and they have the added in- 
terest, from a literary point of view, of first exemplifying the 
form in which the short story was to become established during 
the nineteenth century. This form afterwards was brought to 
higher artistic perfection and wider general application by such 
writers as Edgar Allan Poe, Nathaniel Hawthorne, and Bret 
Harte in America, and Robert Louis Stevenson, Rudyard Kip- 
ling, and Sir Arthur Conan Doyle in England. A very striking 
view of the development of the short story may be obtained by 
reading the following examples in the order given: The Black 
Cat and The Fall of the House of Usher, by Poe; Howe's Mas- 
querade, by Hawthorne; Tennessee's Partner, by Bret Harte; 
The Sieur de Maletroit's Door, by Stevenson; The Man Who 
Would be King and The Drums of the Fore and Aft, by Kipling; 
Silver Blaze, by Conan Doyle. 

The story of Rip Van Winkle has been dramatized by Dion 
Boucicault, and the part of Rip himself was for many years 
finely interpreted by Joseph Jefferson. 

PAGE 

10 Fort Christina: a fort on the Delaware established by the 
Swedes and captured by Stuyvesant in 1655. 

termagant: scolding, bad-tempered. The word comes 
from the devil-character Termagant in the old Miracle 
plays. 

12 galligaskins: loose breeches. 

13 a gallows air: a guilty or downcast look. 

a rubicund portrait: a sign-board with a highly-colored 
picture of King George III. 

14 the most gigantic word: We are reminded of the school- 
master in Goldsmith's Deserted Village: 

While words of learned length and thundering sound 
Amazed the gaping rustics ranged around; 
And still they gazed, and still the wonder grew 
That one small head could carry all he knew. 

junto : a political club, a faction. From the Spsmish junta, 
council. 

virago : a violent, turbulent woman. 



ii WASHINGTON IRVING, 

PAGE 

15 shagged: covered with bushes. See Scott, Lay of the Last 

Minstrel: 

Land of brown heath and shaggy wood, 
Land of the mountain and the flood. 

16 jerkin: short coat, jacket. 

17 outlandish: foreign. 

doublets: close-fitting body-garments, with or without 
sleeves. 

sugar-loaf hat: hat with a high, rounded crown. In those 
days sugar was manufactured and sold in the form of 
" loaves "; these were cone-shaped, and about a foot high. 

18 hanger: short curved sword, 
roses : rosettes of ribbon. 

Dominie : minister — the term was usually applied to a 
schoolmaster. 

Hollands : gin made in Holland. 

19 firelock: or "flintlock," a gun in which the charge was 
ignited by the hammer striking a spark from a piece of 
flint. The percussion cap was invented later. 

roisters: revellers, roysterers. 

22 a red night cap: a "liberty cap," placed on top of a lib- 
erty pole. 

23 phlegm: apathy, dullness. 

Babylonish jargon : a mere confusion of words. The refer- 
ence is to the Bible story of the Tower of Babel — see 
Genesis xi. 

Federal or Democrat: After the Revolution the country 
was divided into two political parties. The Federalists, 
with Hamilton at their head, believed in a strong central 
government; while the Democrats, led by Jefferson, wished 
to reserve many local powers to the individual states. 

a tory: the "tories" were those who remained faithful to 
the British Government. 
28 Hendrick Hudson: Henry Hudson was a famous English 
sailor who discovered the Hudson River in 1609, while in 
the service of the Dutch East India Company. He sailed 
up as far as the site of Albany, hunting for a short route to 
India. He was afterwards employed by the British Gov- 
ernment in a similar search and was eventually cast adrift 
in an open boat in Hudson's Bay by his mutinous crew 
(1611). 

the Half -Moon: the ship in which the voyage up the 
Hudson was made. 

the great city called by his name: an odd slip on Irving's 

part — New York was never named after Hudson. 

30 Note. This passage, as well as the Prefatory Note to the 

story, gives an excellent idea of Irving's quiet humor. He 

revives the familiar figure of Diedrich Knickerbocker in 



of 



EXPLANATORY NOTES. iii 

order to bestow upon the tale a pleasant air of historical 
accuracy. 

Questions and Topics for Study. 

Which parts of the story seem to you to be best — the charac- 
ter drawing, the incidents in the hollow, or the descriptions 
scenery? Discuss fully. 

Write an imaginary conversation between Mr. Doolittle and 
the "self-important man" on the subject of Rip's return. 

Do you know of any story, other than Riy Van Winkle, 
where the plot turns upon prolonged absence? 

THE LEGEND OF SLEEPY HOLLOW. 
The charm of this story lies in its leisurely movement, its 
pleasing and varied descriptive passages, and the touches 
throughout of slightly malicious humor. It is as if Irving him- 
self stood by, watching with a smile the pecuharities of the 
schoolmaster. 

PAGE 

33 Tarry Town: The purchase of "Sunnyside" by Irving is 
mentioned in a letter to his brother Peter in 1835: "You 
have been told, no doubt, of a purchase I have made of ten 
acres, lying at the foot of Oscar's farm on the river bank. 
It is a beautiful spot, capable of being made a little para- 
dise. There is a small stone cottage on it, built about a cen- 
tury since, and inhabited by one of the Van Tassels. My 
idea is to make a little nookery somewhat in the Dutch 
style, quaint but unpretending." 

original Dutch settlers : The region about New York and 
the Lower Hudson was settled by emigrants sent out by 
the Dutch West India Company in 1623-29. 

34 Hessian trooper: The Hessians were soldiers from Hesse, 
Germany, hired by the British Government during the 
Revolution to fight in America. The custom of using mer- 
cenary soldiers was common at the time. After the war the 
Hessians were offered the choice of being sent home or of 
taking up farm lands in the British Colony of Nova Scotia. 
Many of them accepted the latter offer, and their descend- 
ants may be found in the original district to-day. 

35 back to the churchyard: It was an ancient belief that 
ghosts must return to their place before "cock-crow." 

39 whilom: formerly, once upon a time. An old-fashioned 
word, introduced purposely, to give a flavor to the story. 

carried away the palm: won a victory over. A palm 
branch was the ancient sign of victory; there is a well- 
known Latin proverb, "Palmam qui meruit ferat" — "let 
him who deserves it bear the palm." 

41 harbinger: here, one who gives warning. The word 



IV WASHINGTON IRVING. 

PAGE 

originally meant an officer who was sent before a royal 
party to arrange for lodging and entertainment. 

varlet: wretch — ^ used contemptuously. The word has 
deteriorated in meaning; originally it signified a boy of noble 
birth who was in training for knighthood. 

42 fearful pleasure : pleasure that is full of fears. Compare 
the lines from Gray's Ode on a Distant Prospect of Eton 
College, where, speaking of truant schoolboys, he says : 

They hear a voice in every wind, 
And snatch a fearful joy. 

43 perambulations : wanderings about. 

46 chanticleer: the cock. 

craving that quarter: asking for mercy. "Quarter" 
originally meant "peace," "friendship." 

47 linsey-woolsey: coarse cloth made of a mixture of linen 
and wool. 

Indian corn: what we call to-day, simply, "corn." It was 
ternied Indian corn by the early English settlers, to dis- 
tinguish it from wheat, which was (and still is) known as 
"corn" in England. 

gaud: bright ornament. 

knight- errant: The best example of the true knight- 
errant to be found in fiction is the Black Knight in Ivanhoe. 

48 Herculean: gigantic. Hercules was the hero of Greek 
myth, famous for his strength. 

Tartar: the Tartars were a race of wild nomadic horse- 
men, who inhabited the southern steppes of Russia. 

49 rantipole: wild, rough. An unusual word. 

50 supple-jack: a climbing plant with a strong, supple stem. 
53 ferule : cane. The word is no longer used in this sense. 

a negro : slaves were not uncommon in the North at the 
period of the story. There were a good many of them in 
New York at the time of Irving's youth. 

cap of Mercury: Mercury, the messenger of the gods, 
was represented as wearing a close-fitting winged cap. 

petty embassies: trivial errands. 

57 The sun gradually wheeled: This passage contains a con- 
trolled and effective description of a noble scene. It should 
be compared with the passage in Riy Van Winkle beginning 
"In a long ramble of the kind," on page 15. 

It was towards evening: Here we have an almost first- 
band account of a picturesque gathering. Note the fine 
choice of descriptive epithets, in this and the preceding 
paragraph. 

58 queued: gathered into a pig-tail. Long hair for men was 
the fashion of the time. The use of an "eelskin" would 
seem to us a somewhat unpleasant manner of arranging 
the queue. 



EXPLANATORY NOTES. V 

PAGE 

59 Heaven bless the mark! An exclamatory expression, 
here used hiiinorously. The origin of the phrase is un- 
certain; the following explanation is taken from Brewer's 
Dictionary of Phrase and Fable: "In archery, when an 
archer shot well it was customary to cry out ' God save the 
mark ! ' — that is, prevent anyone coming after to hit the 
same mark and displace my arrow. Ironically it was said to 
a novice whose arrow was nowhere." 
want: lack. 

GO St. Vitus : There was an old superstition in some parts of 
Europe that good health could be ensured for a year by 
dancing before an image of this saint on the occasion of his 
festival. The name "St. Vitus's dance" is given to a nerv- 
ous disorder which affects the hmbs. 

61 There was the story: note the typical irony of this para- 
graph. 

White Plains : a village about twenty miles north of New 
York, where a victory was gained by the British under 
Howe over the Americans under Washington, on October 
28, 1776. 

62 Major Andre: an officer in the British army during the 
Revolutionary War. He was chosen to arrange with Arnold 
for the transfer of West Point to British possession. He 

. secured from Arnold maps and plans, but was captured at 
Tarrytown, and executed as a spy. 

63 arrant jockey: unmitigated cheat. 

should have won it: would certainly have won it. 
"Should," in the sense of "would" or "ought to," is now 
obsolete, but was good usage at least as late as 1859, for 
we find it in Dickens's Tale of Tivo Cities, Book I, chapter v: 
" He should have been of a hot temperament, for, although 
it was a bitter day, he wore no coat." 

64 pillions : pads or cushions placed behind the saddle and 
adjusted for a second rider. 

chapfallen: gloomy, "down in the mouth." 
69 stave : a few bars from a piece of music. 

71 stocks: A "stock" was a stiff band of horse-hair or 
leather, covered with some lighter material and fastened 
behind with a, buckle. 

72 small-clothes: knee-breeches. 

pitch-pipe: a small instrument used to give the note in 
starting a tune. 

74 The Postscript is introduced, like the Note at the end of 
Rip Van Winkle, to give a touch of pretended reality. 

sadly: solemnly. 

one of your wary men : one who was always on his guard. 
The word "your" is used in a colloquial sense. 

75 Ergo: therefore. A word employed by old-time logicians 
in stating the conclusion of an argument. 



vi WASHINGTON IRVING. 

puzzled by the ratiocination of the syllogism : puzzled by 
the line of reasoning in the argument. A "syllogism" is 
argument reduced to its lowest terms, in which two "prem- 
ises" lead to a "conclusion." For example: 

All men are mortal; 
I am a man; 
Therefore, I am mortal. 

The syllogism of the story-teller is, of course, pure nonsense. 

Questions and Topics for Study. 
Write a short theme on one of the following topics: 

a. The Village Junto. 

b. School-teaching in Sleepy Hollow. 

c. A Riverside Farm-house. 

Describe a person with whom you are familiar, using methods 
similar to those employed in Rip Van Winkle and The Legend 
of Sleepy Hollow. 

In writing a theme about the Dutch settlements along the 
Hudson River, what help would you secure (a) from your school 
history, and (b) from Irving's stories ? 

PHILIP OF POKANOKET. 

It has been said that Irving was a story-teller rather than a 
historian. This sketch offers a fair test of the truth of the state- 
ment : he is more interested throughout, one can see, in the nar- 
rative qualities of the facts than in the facts themselves. Hence 
we find here some material which does not bear directly on the 
subject. He was handicapped, perhaps, because he was writing 
at second hand — others had told the same story before him. 
With the present essay should be compared another of similar 
nature — Traits of Indian Character. Both arouse our interest 
and sympathy rather than our intellectual approval. 

PAGE 

79 sachems: chiefs, rulers. 

80 sagamore : Indian of high rank — the word has about 
the same significance as "sachem." 

83 a nice enquirer: close, or exact. 

85 mauraudings: forays, expeditions for plunder. 

86 chimeras : horrible stories. The Chimera was a fabulous 
beast, part lion, part goat, and part dragon. 

89 toils: snares, ambushes. 

perplexed with thickets: an unusual but effective phrase 
descriptive of tangled woodland. 

lugubrious hemlocks: melancholy, gloomy, 
wafted themselves : sailed. 

90 ubiquity : the quality of being everywhere at once, 
necromancy: magic. 

95 suborned: won over by bribery. 



EXPLANATORY NOTES. Vli 

PAGE 

96 starved : killed. Originally, "starve" meant "die"; it is 

now used only of death from hunger. 
98 shot through the heart: King Philip was slain on August 

12, 1676. 

Questions and Topics for Study. 

Discuss the questions at issue between King Philip and the 
Colonists. Which side do you think was in the right? 

Compare Irving's methods (a) as a story-teller and (b) as an 
historian. Which do you consider the more effective? 

Find some instances of the treatment of the Indians (a) by 
the Colonists, (b) by the United States Government. 



Books on Patriotic Subjects 

[ AM AN AMERICAN 

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STORIES OF PATRIOTISM. 

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A series of stirring tales of patriotic deeds by Americans from the 
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THE PATRIOTIC READER. 

Edited by Katharine I. Bemis, Mathilde E. Holtz, and Henry L. 

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The selections cover the history of our country from Colonial 
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THE LITTLE BOOK OF THE FLAG. 

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In her own entertaining style, Miss Tappan has written the story 
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A COURSE IN CITIZENSHIP AND PATRIOTISM. 

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HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

1932 



THE TAPPAN-KENDALL HISTORIES 

By EVA MARCH TAPPAN, Ph.D., and CALVIN N. KENDALL, LL D. 

Book I. American Hero Stories. {For Grades IV-V.) . 

By Eva March Tappan. 
A logical introduction to Miss Tappan's /i« Elementary History of Our Countrj^ 
The stories are chronologically arranged and appealingly told. 

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The historical bond of union between Europe and America is adequately developed in 
this book. In every detail the book follows the course in history laid down for the sixth 
'^ade by the Committee of Eight of the American Historical Association. 

Book IV. History of the United States for Grammar Schools. 

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By Reuben Gold Thwaites, LL.D., and Calvin N. Kendall, LL.D. 

There is an adequate and up-to-date account of our social and industrial development, 
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TIMELY BOOKS OF PATRIOTIC INTEREST 

i Am An American. {For Grades V-VI.) 

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Stories of Patriotism. {For Grades V-VI.) 

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The Patriotic Reader. [For Grades VII-VIII and Junior High Schools.) 
Compiled by K. I. Bemis, M. E. Holtz, and H. L. Smith, Ph.D. 

The Little Book of the Flag. {For Grades VI, VII, VIII) 

By Eva March Tappan . 
The Little Book of the War. {For Grades VII- VIII and Junior High 
Schools.) By Eva March Tappan 

American Ideals. {For High Schools.) 

Edited by Norman Foerster and W. W. Pierson, Jr. 

Liberty, Peace, and Justice. {For High Schools.) 

Speeches and Addresses on Democracy and Patriotism, i776-igi8. River- 
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A Treasury of War Poetry. {For High Schools.) 

British and American ~oems of the World War. Edited by GwjRGE Her- 
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Americanization and Citizenship. 

Lessons in Community and National Ideals for New Americans. By 
Hanson Hart Webster 

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Representative Cities of the United States. 

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The Twins Series of Historical Readers. 

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The Cave Twins. — The Spartan Twins. — The Puritan 
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History Readers. 

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The Story of the Greek People. — The Story of the Roman 
People. — Old World Hero Stories. — Our European Ances- 
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Stories. — The Little Book of the War. 



Heroes Every Child Should Know. 

Edited by Hamilton Wright Mabie. Illustrated. 

Dramatized Scenes from American History. 

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HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



HIGH SCHOOL ENGLISH 

SHORT STORIES OF AMERICA 

By Robert L. Ramsay, Professor of English, University of Missouri. 

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The forty-five selections from literature comprising this book have been 
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TRANSLATIONS 

Wright {Editor) — Masterpieces of Greek Literature. In 

translation. 456 pages. 

Bryant — Homer's The Iliad. Translated into English blank 
verse. Abridged to conform to the college entrance requirements 
in English. With Map, Pronouncing Vocabulary, Suggestions 
for Study, etc. Riverside Literature Series, No. 243. 

Bryant — Homer's The Odyssey. Translated into English 
blank verse. With Map and Pronouncing Vocabulary. Students'' 
Edition. 

Palmer — Homer's The Odyssey. Revised Edition. Trans- 
lated into English prose. With an Introduction, Portrait Bust, 
Maps, and Outlines, Questions, and Suggestions. Riverside 
Literature Series, No, 180. 

More — iEschylus, Prometheus Bound. Translated into 
English prose. With an Introduction and Notes. 

More — Plato's The Judgment of Socrates: The Apology, 
Crito, Closing Scene of the Phaedo. Translated into English 
prose. Riverside Literature Series, No. 129. 

Palmer — Sophocles' Antigone. Translated into English prose. 

With an Introduction and Notes. 
Greek Leaders. A supplementary text comprising eleven 

biographies, for use in high school classes in ancient history. 

By Leslie W. Hopkinson, under the editorship of William S. 

Ferguson, Professor of Ancient History, Harvard University. 



Laing {Editor) — Masterpieces of Latin Literature. In trans- 
lation, 496 pages. 

Williams — Virgil's The iEneid. Translated into English 
blank verse. With Introduction, Illustrations, and Pronouncing 
Vocabulary. Riverside Literature Series, No. 193. 

Cranch —^Virgil's The .^neid. Translated into English blank 
verse. Studefits'' Edition. 

Harris — Seneca's Medea, and The Daughters of Troy. 
Translated into English verse. With an Introduction. 



Norton — Dante's Divine Comedy. Complete Edition, three 
volumes in one. Translated into English prose. With Intro- 
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HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



€iit j^llag Hovt ^^ayp mmn ^erte g 

I. THE FALL OF THE YEAR 

IL WINTER 

in. THE SPRING OF THE YEAR 
IV. SUMMER 

BY 

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Atiihor of" The Pace of the Fields^' 
**Th4 Lay of the Land^^ etc. 

Illustrated by ROBERT BRUCE HORSFALL 



Because of the personal, intimate touch and the 
numerous episodes revealing the author's sincere 
enjoyment of nature, boys and girls will read these 
books with increasing delight and be much the richer 
for the reading. 

Teachers may be assured that Mr, Sharp's natural 
history is authentic, for he is an enemy to all "na- 
ture-faking." His reputation as a nature writer is 
second only to John Burroughs's. 

In these books, his aim is to inspire a real love fot 
and interest in nature on the part of school children 

Throughout the books are chapters on "Things to 
See," "Things to Do," and "Things to Hear." These, 
with the full Notes and Suggestions to the Teach^ 
and for the Pupil, make a very helpful classroon? 
equipment. 



HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



PRACTICAL ENGLISH COMPOSITION 
In Four Books 

By EDWIN L. MILLER 

Principal of the Northwestern High School 
Detroit, Michigan 

This series marks a radical departure in methods of teaching 
English. It is flexible, direct, and informal. In line with the 
modern tendency in education, it emphasizes the practical 
aspect, the why of learning to write and to speak good English. 
Original work is encouraged in both teacher and pupils, and 
especial attention is given to training in oral composition. 

While designed for independent use in the four years of the 
high school, the books will admirably supplement a formal 
treatise on rhetoric and composition. 

Book I Teaches the freshman how to write a correct, 
coherent, readable letter, how to speak fluent, 
graceful, precise English, how to gather material 
and criticise his own w ork, and begins the study of 
description. 

Book II Reviews description, teaches the sophomore the 
fundamentals of narration through news writing, 
and takes up advertisement writing. 

Book III Begins advanced composition in the junior year, 
deals with various methods of narration and 
description, and takes up exposition in detail. 

Book IV Reviews exposition and develops the subject of 
argumentation — -oration and debating — in the 
senior year- 

The author has devoted several years to the perfection of 
the plan embodied in th ■ series. Not only has he succeeded 
in rounding out a live course of English instruction from the 
teacher's point of view, but he has presented each chapter in 
such a way that the pupil realizes its importance to him. 



HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 

1949 



p D 7 4 I 



RIVERSIDE LITERATURE SERIES 



(Continued) 



149. 
150, 
151. 
152. 
153. 
154. 
155. 
15G. 
157. 
158. 
159. 
IGO. 
1(51. 
1G2. 
1(53. 
1G4. 
1(55. 
1(5(). 
167. 
168. 
169. 
170. 
171, 
173. 
174. 
175. 
176. 
177. 
178. 
179. 
180. 
181. 
182. 
183. 
184. 
185.. 
186. 
187, 
189. 
190. 

191. 

192. 
193. 
194. 
195. 
196. 
197. 
198, 
200. 
•201, 
202. 
203. 
204. 
205. 
206. 
207. 
208. 
209. 
210. 
211. 
212. 
213. 
214. 
215. 
216. 
217. 



Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. 

Ouida'.s Dog of Flanders, etc. 

Ewiiig's .Ja<'k;iiiapes, etc. 

M;irtineuu"s The Peasiint and tlie Prince. 

Shakespeare's Midsummer Niglit's Dream. 

Shakespeare's Tempest. 

Irving's Life of Goldsmith. 

Tennyson's Gareth and Ljniette, etc. 

Tlie Song of Roland. 

Malory's Merlin and Sir Balin. 

Beowulf. 

Spenser's Faerie Queene. Book I. 

Dickens's Tale of Two Cities. 

Prose an 1 Poetry of Cardinal Newman. 

Shakespeare'o Henry V. 

De Qnincey's Joan of Arc, etc. 

Scott's Quentin Durward. 

Carlyle's Heroes and Hero-Worship. 

Longfellow's Autobiographical Poems. 

Shelley's Poems. 

Lowell's My Garden Acquaintance, etc. 

Lamb's Essays of Elia. 

172. Emerson's Essays. 

Kate Douglas Wiggin's Flag-Raising. 

Kate Douglas Wiggin's Finding a Home. 

Whittier's Autobiographical Poems. 

Burroughs' s Afoot and Afloat. 

Bacon's Essays. 

Selections from John Ruskin. 

King Arthur Stories from Malory. 

Paliner's Odyssey. 

Goldsmith's The Good-Natured Man. 

Goldsmith s She Stoops to Conquer. 

Old English and Scottish Ballads. 

Shakespeare's King Lear. 

Moores's Life of Lincoln. 

Thoreau's Camping in the Maine Woods. 

188. Huxley's Autobiography, and Essays. 

Byron's Cliilde Harold, Canto IV, etc. 

Washington's Farewell Address, and Web- 
ster's Bunker Hill Oration. 

The Second Shepherds' Play, etc. 

Mrs. Gaskell's Cranford. 

Williams's ^neid. 

Irving's Bracebridge Hall. Selections. 

Thoreau's Walden. 

Sheridan's The Rivals. 

Barton's Captains of Industry. Selected. 
199. Macanlay'sLoi-d Clive and W. Hastings. 

Howells's The Rise of Silas Lapham. 

Harris's Little Mr.Thimblefinger Stories. 

Jewett's The Night Before Thanksgiving. 

Shumway's Nibelungenlied. 

Sheffield's Old Testament Narrative. 

Powers's A Dickens Reader. 

Goethe's Faust. Part I. 

Cooper's The Spy. 

Aldrich's Story of a Bad Boy. 

Warner's Being a Boy. 

Wiggin's Polly Oliver's Probi3m. 

Milton's Areopagitica, etc. 

Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet. '" 

Hemingway's Le Morte Arthur 

Moores's Life of Columbus. 

Bret Harte's Tennessee's Partner, etc. 

Udall's Ralph Roister Doister. 

Austin's Standish of Standish, Drama- 
tized. 



218. Selected Lyrics from Wordsworth, Keats, 

and Shelley. 

219. Selected Lyrics from Dryden, Collins, 

Gray, Cowper, and Burns. 

220. Southern Poems. 

221. Maoaulay's Speeches on Copj'right; Lin- 

coln's Cooper Union Address. 

222. Briggs's College Life. 

223. Selections from the Prose Writings of Mat- 

thew Arnold. 

224. Perry's American Mind and American 

Idealism. 

225. Newman's University Subjects. 

22G. Burroughs's Studies in Nature and Lit- 
erature. 

227. Bryce's Promoting Good Citizenship. 

228. Selected English Letters. 

229. Jewett's Plav-Day Stories. 

230. Grenfell's Adrift on an Ice-Pau. 

231. Muir's Stickeen. 

232. Wiggin's The Birds' Christmas Carol. 

233. Tennyson's Idylls. (Selected.) 

234. Selected Essays. 

235. Briggs's To College Girls. 

236. Lowell's Literary Essays. (Selected.) 

238. Short Stories, 

239. Selections from American Poetry. 

240. Howells's The Sleeping Car, and The 

Parlor Car. 

241. Mills's Story of a Thousand-Year Pine, etc. 

242. Eliot's Training for an Effective Life. 

243. Bryant's Iliad. Abridged Edition. 

244. Lockwood's English Sonnets. 

245. Antin's At School in the Promised Land. 

246. Shepard's Shakespeare Questions. 

247. Muir's The Boyhood of a Naturalist. 

248. Boswell's Life of Johnson. 

249. Palmer's Self-Cultivation in English, and 

The Glory of the Imperfect. 

250. Sheridan's The School for Scandal. 

251. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and 

Piers the Ploughman. 

252. Howells's A Modern Instance. 

253. Helen Keller's The Story of My Life. 

254. Rittenhouse's The Little Book of Modern 

Verse. 

255. Rittenhouse's The Little Book of Ameri- 

can Poets. 

256. Richards's High Tide. 

257. Kipling Stories and Poems Every Cliild 

Should Know, Book I. 

258. Kipling Stories and Poems Every Child 

Should Know, Book II. 

259. Burroughs's The Wit of a Duck. etc. 
260- Irving's Tales from the Alhambra. 

261. Liberty, Peace, and Justice. 

262. A Treasury of War Poetry. 

263. Peabody's The Piper. 

264. Wiggin's Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. 

265. Aldrich's Marjorie Daw, Goliath, etc. 

266. Sharp's Ways of the Woods. 

267. Rittenhouse's The Second Book of Mod- 

em Verse. 

268. Drinkwater's Abraham Lincoln. 

269. Wordsworth: Selections. Arnold: Es- 

say on Wordsworth. 

270. Burroughs's Nature Near Home, etc. 

271. Mills's Being Good to Bears, etc. 



(See also back cover) 



(75) 



RIVERSIDE LITERATURE SERIES 



(Continued) 



EXTRA NUMBERS 



C Warriner's Teaching of English Classics 
in the Grades. 

F Longfellow Leaflets. 

G Whittier Leaflets. 

H Holmes Leaflets. 

/ Thomas ' s How to Teach English Classics . 

./ Holbrook's Northland Heroes. 

K Minimum College Requirements in Eng- 
lish for Study. 

L The Riverside Song Book. 

.1/ Lowell's Fable for Critics. 

iV Selections from American Authors. 

O Lowell Leaflets. 

P Holbrook's Hiawatha Primer. 

Q Selections from English Authors. 

R Hawthorne'sTwice-Told Tales. Selected. 

S living's Essays from Sketch Book. Se. 
lected. 

T Literature for the Study of Language. 

U A Dramatization of the Song of Hia- 
watha. 

V Holbrook'sBookof Nature Myths. 

W Brown's In the Days of Giants. 

X Poems for the Study of Language. 



Y Warner's In the Wilderness. 
Z Nine Selected Poems. 



BB 



CC 
DD 
KE 
FF 

GG 

IIH 

JJ 

KK 

LL 

M3I 



Coleridge's The Ancient Mariner and 
Lowell's The Vision of Sir Launfal. 

Poe's The Raven, Whittier's Snow 
Bound, and Longfellow's The Court- 
ship of Miles Standish. 

Selections for Study and Memorizing. 

Sharp's The Year Out-of-Doors. 

Poems for Memorizing. 

Poems for Reading and Memorizing, 
Grades I and II. 

Poems for Reading and Memorizing. 
Grade III. 

Poems for Reading and Memorizing 
Grade IV. 

Poems for Reading and Memorizing 
Grade V. 

Poems for Reading and Memorizing, 
Grade VI. 

Selections for Reading and Memoriz- 
ing, Grade VII. 

Selections for Reading and Memoriz- 
ing, Grade VIII. 



LIBRARY BINDING 



135-136. Chaucer's Prologue, The Knight's 

Tale. 
168. Shelley's Poems. Selected. 
1 77 . Bacon ' s Essays . 
181-182. Goldsmith's Plays. 
187-188. Huxley's Autobiography and 

Essays. 
igi. Second Shepherds' Play, etc. 
211. Milton's Areopagitici, etc. 
216. Ralph Roister Doister. 

222. Briggs's College Life. 

223 . Matthew Arnold ' s Prose Selection s . 

224. Perry's The American Mind. etc. 

225. Newman's University Subjects. 

226. Burroughs' s Studies in Nature and 

Literature. 

227. Bryce's Promoting Good Citizenship. 

235. Briggs's To College Girls. 

236. Lowell's Selected Literary Essays. 



242. Eliot's The Training for an Effective 

Life. 
244. Lockwood's English Sonnets. 
246. Shepard's Shakespeare Questions. 
248. Eoswell's Life of Johnson. Abridged. 

250. Sheridan's The School for Scandal. 

251. Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, 

and Piers the Ploughman. 

252. Howells's A Modern Instance. 

254. Rittenhouse's The i^ittle Book of 

Modern Verse. 

255. Rittenhouse's The Little Book of 

American Poets 

256. Richards 's High Tide. 

267. Rittenhouse's Second E 00k ot Modern 

Verse. 
258. Drinkwater's Abraham Lincoln. 
K. Minimum College Requirements in 

English for Study. 



Complete Catalogue and Price List free upon application 



HOUGHTON MIFFLIN COMPANY 



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